- Hubert Walas
Russia's Collapse. Part 2.
Impasse or even outright defeat on the frontline. Economic and communicational collapse. Reduction of the provincial budget with increasing transfers to the core. Protests and attempts at greater autonomy for individual regions. These are just the beginning of a hypothetical cause-and-effect model that could lead to the third major collapse of the world's largest country in the last hundred years. And some of these developments are already taking place.
How could such a scenario play out? Which regions might seek secession first?
Domino Effect
In the previous episode, we talked about the motives for which the next collapse of a Moscow-centered state is not necessarily a purely theoretical event. For a better understanding of the context presented here, we invite you to check out that first episode.
1917 with the collapse of Tsarist Russia and 1991 with the collapse of the USSR show that Moscow's centuries-old imperialist project has regular cycles, culminating in the agony and death of a structurally inefficient system. The war in Ukraine is the catalyst for a whole spectrum of problems involving the macroeconomic, social, geographical, as well as those bound to the apparatus of power. All this consumes the colossus centralised around Moscow.
Assessment of the war in Ukraine remains highly subjective. The theory of victory for each observer varies. The Ukrainians suffered huge human and economic losses, but contrary to the expectations of most, defended their independence, beat the Russians at Kyiv, and made a spectacular reconquest of territories lost at the beginning of the war, such as Kharkiv and Kherson. There are also a number of factors that are difficult to measure, such as Kyiv's close rapprochement with Western structures or, even more importantly, the largest state-building process in the country's history and the reconciliation of a historically divided nation. This is perhaps the most important moment in Ukrainian history, surpassing even the Cossack uprisings of the 17th century.
Conversely, in the case of Moscow, the profit and loss account is unequivocally catastrophic. As a result of the war, its military potential has been drastically reduced. Due to war expenditures and draconian sanctions, the economy is entering a deep crisis. Geopolitically, it is one big disaster. Moscow started 2022 from an extremely strong position of power. A year later, it lost Ukraine for good. In the north, with the accession of Finland and Sweden, NATO came to within an artillery salvo's distance from Russia's historic capital, St. Petersburg and cut Russia off from the Baltic Sea through full control of the Gulf of Finland. The countries of Central Asia are breaking away from their status as Moscow's colony, while Europeans who are the most important customers of Russia's most important exports - fossil fuels - have been lost for the foreseeable future. On the other hand, always looking for leverage, Moscow's imperialist elite is increasingly becoming a vassal state of the People's Republic of China. Russia, from its position as a superpower aspiring to join the Sino-American duopoly, has slipped to being a mere terrorist junior partner under China.
Foreign policy is often a function of domestic policy, but this relationship also works the other way round. Fatal settlements in the international arena are one of the strongest imperatives for the instability and even collapse of states, especially those overstretched and burdened by multiple social, cultural, and geographical barriers. Such was the final nail in the coffin of Tsarist Russia in 1917 and Soviet Russia in 1991.
Putin's Russia of 2023 is repeating this rhythm. So, roughly speaking, what might the process of break-up of the Russian Federation look like?
At the time of writing, the phrase 'the defeat of the Russian Federation in Ukraine' is a controversial statement, but 'indefinite impasse’ is not. However, both result in economic armageddon for the Kremlin's public finances. Only two and a half months into 2023 and Moscow has already fallen into a deficit level intended for the whole year. The sanctions and their successive iterations are multiplying problems, which are constantly compounding. Tax declines from raw material sales reach 50% year-on-year. The price of Russian Urals crude oil, is approaching the price of $45, the lowest in two years and almost $30 less than Brent. At this price, production at most Russian fields is becoming unprofitable. The sale of hydrocarbons to China and India only partly helps the situation as both Beijing and Delhi are taking advantage of Moscow's weakness and buying it at large discounts.
Concurrently, there is a collapse in imports and an exodus of many specialized companies. While the lack of cheeseburgers or new Mercedes cars is less of a problem, the lack of specialised equipment for industry, including machinery and semiconductors, which Russia does not produce itself and has imported entirely from the West, is a massive challenge. The primitivisation of military production is already a reality with optical systems for tanks or integrated circuits for missiles beginning to be in short supply or simply not available. Yes, Chinese components can replace part of the demand, but first, they take a long time to integrate. Second, they are often inferior to Western ones. And third, the Chinese may simply not want to sell them to Russians for fear of Western sanctions and losing markets far more important than the Russian one.
Military production is a pressing problem, but perhaps an even greater problem is communication decay, also a result of Moscow's isolation. In the world's largest country, one that is extremely centralised and stretches across 11 time zones, good connectivity is fundamental to maintaining internal cohesion. Meanwhile, the volume of air freight traffic in Russia fell by almost 60% in 2022. This is a result of lower transport volumes, but there are also technical problems. For example, Sukhoi Superjet 100 aircraft are close to being grounded. The reason? A shortage of French-produced spark plugs for engines. The supply of spare parts will lead to diminishing air traffic. Noticeable declines have also been recorded in Russian rail traffic.
These are events that are underway. Viewed from a bird's eye view, these processes lead to soaring poverty levels, pronounced socio-economic inequalities, declining federal financial subsidies, deteriorating local infrastructure and state connectivity, environmental disasters, failing health services, rampant corruption, inflation, and increasing alienation of the population from centralized decision-making. The disproportion of national minorities among the victims of the war in Ukraine should also not be forgotten. The scale of the problems and their accumulation depends on the region and social class concerned, but the process is most severely affecting the poorest inhabitants of Russia’s provinces.
The Tsar, the Barons, and the People
Yet, the publically accused wrongdoer for this state of affairs is often not the Kremlin. Or at least not yet. The role of the well-paid scapegoat here is played by a local baron, governor, administrator, or whatever you want to call him, appointed on Moscow’s behalf. It is he, thoroughly corrupt, driving the latest model Bentley, who steals the money sent from Moscow. This is a popular image among Russian locals.
As long as Moscow signals that it is in control of the situation, and therefore the local baron has enough resources to maintain relative calm in the province and the state of his bank accounts does not drastically decrease… the system works. Nevertheless, when public sentiment degrades and the first large-scale protests emerge, then the situation for the barons could become uncomfortable. On the one hand, they will be attacked - most often verbally, though perhaps also physically - by local people who will demand that they fulfil their local duties and regional loyalties. On the other hand, they will be pressured by the Kremlin, which expects regular transfers to the core and the suppression of unrest.
In this scenario, particularly in resource and industrial-rich regions, there may be a very strong temptation for the barons to cut their existing ties with Moscow and join ‘the people.'
This would not be the first time this has happened. In 2020, mass protests in Khabarovsk erupted following the arrest by the central authorities of Sergei Furgal, the local governor or, in our nomenclature, baron. Furgal was a member of the opposition party, but above all, he was respected by local residents and cared about the region he governed. Enough reason to present an acute threat to the Kremlin, especially given the distance from Moscow. As his popularity was a threat, he was eventually sentenced to 22 years for murders he allegedly had committed 15 years earlier. The protests eventually subsided because Moscow's central control was still strong.
It might also happen that the local baron, fearing Furgal's fate, will prove loyal to the tsar. Then, inevitably, there will be new claimants to the local throne who will call for greater economic autonomy and the overthrow of the baron. And power is held only by he who has the populace behind him. Then there is the human factor - president, prime minister, other ministers - suddenly there will be many new vacancies in the power structures of new, hypothetical states.
The narrative will shift by 180 degrees. Moscow will increasingly be seen as an exploitative colonial metropolis. As long as the regime has the resources to suppress or manage crises within the empire, the situation remains calm. However, everything can change in the blink of an eye when the system is tested and proves inefficient.
In the 22 non-Russian republics, such as Bashkiria and Tatarstan, ethnic issues which Moscow has for years tried to drown out and replace with Russian culture and language, will come to the fore. While the ethnic divide will exacerbate the divisions, the more significant motif is a breakdown in the Kremlin-Baron-the People axis. For it is on the vertical arrangement of power that the entire Russian model of control rests.
The power structure in the present Russian Federation is much more fragile than in the Soviet Union. A narrow group of individuals has replaced the Communist Party, and everything rests on the leader from whom there is an undefined - or rather absent - succession mechanism.
Nevertheless, in the event of the emergence of the first movements demanding greater autonomy or even secession, the current state apparatus, in order to maintain power, will have to take countermeasures. There are essentially two options.
Chechen Model
The Chechen model, or violent pacification, is the most natural. Moscow aggressively suppresses the protests, the rebel leader is arrested, and the rebellious region serves as a warning to the others. The Kremlin will also attempt to ethnically scapegoat the locals, portraying them as violent separatists, thus an existential threat to Russia and its citizens. Classic 'divide and rule' tactics.
The problem is that Moscow, waging a major conventional war in Ukraine, may not have the resources to decisively and demonstratively punish the rebellious province. The Kremlin had conducted such a punitive operation in Chechnya for years while not engaged in a war abroad. Moreover, promoting ethnic and religious hatred would further destroy national and social cohesion and convince a large part of the Muslim population that Russia is becoming their existential threat. The risks would be enormous. A failed military intervention of this kind would completely de-legitimise the central government in the eyes of the other provinces. Seeing the lack of core control, a wave of autonomous and secessionist movements would spread and become impossible to control militarily in so many places at once.
Fearing such a scenario, the Kremlin elite may opt for a 'soft' one. In order to preserve internal cohesion and not risk the resources of their repressive apparatus, they meet region's aspirations. There is either a broadening of autonomy or full secession, especially if it is a province of marginal importance. While this is the safer option, its effects can be exactly the same. Other local warlords, seeing the Kremlin's softness, may then conjure similar expectations. Each one demanding greater autonomy or independence. And Moscow again faces the same existential problem. Moreover, any submissiveness would certainly be noted within the capital city elites. An ultranationalist and imperialist faction could grow in strength and demand a hard-line crackdown “on national traitors.”
All the more so as growing discontent within the power elite is a natural result of the current situation. As the national economic 'pie' shrinks, the pyramid of state paternalism favouring certain interest groups will become increasingly unstable. Conflict within the elite may materialise from dwindling resources, and some individuals will seek to use social unrest against their rivals.
Added to this is the military which remains the most important resource in such a situation. Whoever has the men under arms will rule. Already today, it can be said that the Kremlin does not control all of its military potential. Yevgeny Prigozhin, the owner of the private army, Wagner PMC, and Ramzan Kadyrov with his Chechen army are, de facto, not subject to Kremlin control. They will be subject to even less in times of chaos.
Thus, both response scenarios to national fractures lead to essentially the same results.
To sum up, regional elites will conclude that the costs of maintaining loyalty to Moscow outweigh its benefits and will opt for greater regional sovereignty. Once they no longer trust the Kremlin to provide them with political legitimacy and the necessary resources, they will promote their own power base as the authentic leaders of the republics or regions. The initial rupture of the state may be limited. In the midst of economic difficulties and political chaos, one or more federal entities may eventually emerge.
Emerging Countries
What could the new borders look like? The secession of which regions is most likely?
Historically, there are many candidates. As Janusz Bugajski lists, among the nations who can prove their historical claims from before Russia's imperial conquest are Tatars, Bashkorts, Karelians, Udmurts, Moksha, Erzya, Mari, Circassians, Balkars, Chechens, Ingush, Kalmyks, Khakass, Altais, Buryats, Tuvans, and Sakha.
A number of indigenous peoples can claim the right to self-determination under the UN Charter and the 2017 UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. They will assert rights to their traditional territories and resources and administrative self-determination.
The truth is that national uprisings are no novelty in Russia. Both previous break-ups were accompanied by aspirations for independence. The successful ones are known today as independent states, while others ultimately proved unsuccessful. In 1918, simultaneuos uprisings broke out in Chechnya, Ossetia, and Ingushetia. At the same time, the Bashkir Republic, which the Tatars also wanted to join, declared independence. As late as November 1917, the Black Sea Republic was proclaimed with its capital in Novorossiysk. This was followed by the independence of Stavropol, Kuban, and the Crimea as the Taurida Republic. A Siberian Provisional Government was also established in Tomsk.
While national-ethnic issues would certainly play an important role, they would probably not be the most vital motive for a split. A stronger rationale could be economic and social issues, and this means that secession could be sought by virtually any region that feels exploited by the Kremlin, including one with ethnic Russians as the dominant social group. This too would be nothing new: the Ural Republic was established in 1993. More on this in a moment.
In the event of a weakening of Kremlin control, geography would traditionally play its part. Distance and the level of colonial exploitation make the most likely candidates for secession the regions furthest from Moscow, Siberia and the Far East, so potentially the Siberian Republic and the Far Eastern Republic whose territorial scope would include several regions and oblasts. Let us point out at the outset that drawing potential borders is more of a game and an intellectual exercise than an actual prediction. There are too many variables to predict this with any degree of certainty. For the sake of simplicity, let us assume that, following the example of post-colonial Africa, the new post-Russian states would also retain the borders drawn by the colonisers.
Siberian Republic
Let's start with perhaps the most important piece in the whole puzzle: Siberia. During the post-Tsarist civil wars, Siberian regionalists, who claimed a separate identity and sought to emulate the American War of Independence against Russian colonial rule, formed a provisional government of autonomous Siberia in January 1918. However, this was dismantled by the Bolsheviks. Nevertheless, a significant amount of ethnic Russians may support the sovereignty or secession of regions with which they have much more in common than with Moscow despite their common language.
The new Siberian Republic could include: Krasnoyarsk Krai, Sakha, Magadan, Chukotka, and Kamchatka. The 7 million square kilometres of territory would put the country on par with Australia. The country, due to its low population density, would have a modest 4 million inhabitants. While the economy of $55 billion puts it on a level slightly higher than Uganda and smaller than Lithuania. The most natural candidates for the capital would be Krasnoyarsk or Yakutsk. The low economic level of the new entrants is a natural result of low population density. And also of years of capital and human transfers to Moscow and the overall inefficiency of the Russian system to utilise the potential of these resource-rich areas.
Far Eastern Republic
The Far East is one of the most 'rebellious' provinces today with a strong autonomy movement. The 2020 arrest in Khabarovsk of the aforementioned Furgal caused big protests.
The Far Eastern Republic would potentially include the following oblasts, regions and krais: Primorsky, Sakhalin, Khabarovsk, Jewish, Amur, Zabaykalsky, Buryatia, Irkutsk, Tuva, Altai, and Khakassia. The country would have a population of some 10 million and start with an economy of $90 billion, slightly more than Bulgaria and smaller than Slovakia. This also shows how the potential of this area is drained, which with an area of over 3 million square kilometres, would be the 7th largest country in the world, leapfrogging India and others. The most natural candidates for capital cities are Vladivostok, Khabarovsk or Irkutsk.
Both new states, Siberia and the Far East, redirecting the potential of their people and lands to their needs, have the prospect to rapidly improve their local economies while good connectivity with East Asia through Pacific ports would make the chances of further development promising.
Idel-Ural
Strong secessionist tendencies may also be exhibited in the central Volga region resulting in the rebirth of the Idel-Ural state. This was a short-lived independent republic proclaimed in March 1918 in the Tatarstan capital, Kazan, ensuring the unification of Tatars, Bashkir, Chuvash and other peoples and their liberation from the Russian Empire. It encompassed present-day Tatarstan, Bashkortostan and the Orenburg region with some activists even demanding part of the Caspian coast. After the collapse of the USSR, both Tatars and Bashkirs attempted to gain independence by peaceful means, but Moscow eventually quashed these.
As Bugajski debates, today's incarnation of the Central Volga union, promoted by the Free Idel-Ural movement, would include the republics of Tatarstan, Bashkortostan, Chuvashia, Mari-El, Udmurtia and Mordovia, with the latter renamed to Erzyano-Moksha in recognition of the two nations that comprise it. The new Idel-Ural state could be a confederation in which each republic would conduct its own internal and foreign policy. Some activists propose that the Komi Republic, Perm Krai, and Orenburg Oblast be included in the larger confederation so that the new state could share a border with Kazakhstan.
The new confederate state of Idel-Ural would have a population of over 17 million, or roughly the size of Kazakhstan, a GDP of over $100 billion, 50% larger than Uzbekistan and half the size of Kazakhstan’s. The capital could be in Kazan or Ufa, as both cities are major metropolitan areas.
The Tatars and Bashkirs have their own independence movements and if there were to be an upheaval within the Federation, we would certainly witness their revival. Some Bashkirs are already fighting on the side of Ukraine. Economically, the state could also have grounds for self-determination, as it is already the industrial base of the Russian Federation. In practice, it would be the sixth republic of Central Asia and economically strongest after Kazakhstan.
Mountainous Republic of the Northern Caucasus
Inter-republican initiatives can also include the revival of the independent Mountain Republic of the North Caucasus which existed between 1918 and 1922. This confederative republic included seven constituent states: Dagestan, Chechnya, Ingushetia, Ossetia, Cherkessia, Abkhazia and the Nogay steppes. The Caucasus melting pot rather prevents the formation of a unitary state, but a loose confederation would be possible.
The 8 million strong population would be twice that of neighbouring Georgia, however the GDP of both countries would be virtually the same at $25 billion.
Ural Republic
The stronger secessionist tendencies of Siberia, the Far East, and the central Volga region would split the present Russian Federation in half, isolating the largely Russian regions beyond the Ural mountains. But this area has also sought secession from Moscow throughout its history. The Ural Republic was established on the basis of a referendum held on 12 April 1993, but the project was ultimately quashed. The regions east of Ural could join the emerging blocs or form the new Ural Republic. This could include the following regions: Yamalo-Nenets, Khanty-Mansiysky, Sverdlovsk, Chelyabinsk, Kurgan, Tyumen, Omsk, Tomsk, Novosibirsk, Kemerovo, and Altai Krai. This could be an interesting creation as the Ural Republic would start with the strongest economy of the entities listed so far. Apart from Moscow and St.Petersburg, it is the economically strongest part of the Russian Federation. Its GDP would reach nearly $200 billion, close to that of Kazakhstan and about the size of Greece. The 25 million inhabitants would even exceed Kazakhstan's current population. The capital could be Novosibirsk or Yekaterinburg, both being the largest cities in the Russian Federation after Moscow and St. Petersburg.
Kaliningrad
Naturally, the status of Kaliningrad would be in question. The Poles would not agree to its incorporation into Germany, although it is unlikely that even Germans would want such a move. Whereas a division between Poland and Lithuania is also questionable due to potentially major ethnic problems. The most legitimate option is the disarmament of the oblast and the creation of a fourth Baltic republic, which would have the prospect of joining the European Union.
A European Kaliningrad with a GDP of $7 billion and half a million inhabitants would economically start from the level of current-day Montenegro.
Moscow State
The closer to Moscow, the less likely secessionist tendencies become. All the more so because, as we mentioned, the nationalist movement, whose aim would be to create a mono-ethnic state located around Moscow, would run its game.
The regions that would remain 'loyal' to Moscow in such a scenario would go on to form the economically strongest entity after the breakup, as was the case with Russia after the collapse of the USSR. With a GDP of $1.2 trillion, it is currently at the level of the Netherlands, Mexico, or Indonesia. The population of the 'Moscow Republic' - over 70 million - is slightly more than the current population of the UK or France. Thus, Moscow would continue to be a significant player on the international stage. But without the Ural, Siberian, and Far Eastern regions, the Kremlin would definitively have to abandon delusions of being a superpower. Its imperial ambitions - although certainly still present - would be unfeasible without access to the raw material and industrial base of the regions that seceeded.
Once again, it should be noted that drawing the borders on the map like this is more of a game, but nevertheless it can help us to see something more. The separated entities would deplete the GDP of the Russian Federation by only 25%, while accounting for more than 80% of its current territory and 45% of the population. What’s more, many residents of Moscow and the surrounding area are emigrants from these provinces. These disproportions unquestionably show how hyper-centralisation hampers the development of the province and drains its resources.
In the final episode of this series, we will look at the problems that the break-up of the Russian colossus would generate, the impact on the domestic situation, and the global geopolitical implications on the near abroad and beyond.
