{"id":1771567,"date":"2022-12-11T06:30:35","date_gmt":"2022-12-11T11:30:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1771567"},"modified":"2022-12-11T10:33:57","modified_gmt":"2022-12-11T15:33:57","slug":"is-putin-ready-to-flee-russia-if-defeated-in-ukraine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/is-putin-ready-to-flee-russia-if-defeated-in-ukraine\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Putin Ready to Flee Russia if Defeated in Ukraine?"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">20<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fis-putin-ready-to-flee-russia-if-defeated-in-ukraine%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1771567&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.19fortyfive.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Ukraine-16.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" alt=\"image\"     style=\"display:none\"><\/div>\n<p>Is Putin ready to bail?\n<\/p>\n[embedded content]\n<\/p>\n<p>Last year I published a novel,\u00a0<em>Pitun\u2019s Last Stand<\/em>, which imagined Russia\u2019s descent into civil war and its leader\u2019s flight to Nice on the Riviera.\n<\/p>\n<p>Vladimir Pitun was of course a thinly disguised stand-in for Russia\u2019s real president and dictator, Vladimir Putin.\n<\/p>\n<p>Little did I know that life would imitate my fantasies.\n<\/p>\n<p>Not only is Russia embroiled in a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.19fortyfive.com\/2022\/04\/what-it-means-estonia-labels-russian-invasion-genocide\/\">genocidal war<\/a> that threatens to lead to its <a href=\"https:\/\/www.19fortyfive.com\/2022\/12\/could-russia-collapse-if-putin-gets-crushed-in-ukraine\/\">collapse<\/a>, but a reliable Russian source has just reported that Putin actually has plans to flee Moscow in case he loses the war against Ukraine!<\/p>\n<p>According to\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/glavcom.ua\/country\/politics\/kreml-hotuje-evakuatsiju-putina-u-vipadku-porazki-u-vijni-893974.html\" data-saferedirecturl=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?q=https:\/\/glavcom.ua\/country\/politics\/kreml-hotuje-evakuatsiju-putina-u-vipadku-porazki-u-vijni-893974.html&#038;source=gmail&#038;ust=1670708798094000&#038;usg=AOvVaw3UbusbCKEHu4YYCmocBsGT\">Abbas Galliamov<\/a>, Putin\u2019s speechwriter\u00a0in 2008-2010 and currently a political commentator and consultant in Russia, Putin would escape to either Argentina or Venezuela.\n<\/p>\n<p>The scheme, informally known as Noah\u2019s Ark, was apparently developed in the spring of this year, presumably when Russia\u2019s prospects for a quick victory had evaporated and the very real possibility of defeat suddenly loomed on the horizon.<\/p>\n<p>The original idea was for Putin to hightail it to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.19fortyfive.com\/2022\/12\/china-is-mad-canada-will-send-warships-through-the-taiwan-strait\/\">China<\/a>, but that was dropped because the Russians decided the Chinese didn\u2019t like losers. That may or may not be true, but it\u2019s certain that Putin would have felt uncomfortable playing third fiddle in Beijing.\n<\/p>\n<p>If Galliamov\u2019s Telegram report is accurate, then Venezuela, as one of the few countries in the world to have maintained friendly relations with Moscow, is the likely destination for Putin.\n<\/p>\n<p>And he\u2019s not the only one. According to\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/currently.att.yahoo.com\/att\/cm\/putin-preparing-flee-russia-implodes-162403585.html\" data-saferedirecturl=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?q=https:\/\/currently.att.yahoo.com\/att\/cm\/putin-preparing-flee-russia-implodes-162403585.html&#038;source=gmail&#038;ust=1670708798094000&#038;usg=AOvVaw1cav072e3T1_yeH9KrbAa8\">one report<\/a>, high-ranking Russian officials are apparently buying real estate in Venezuela, which could portend a mass exodus of war criminals to that unfortunate country.<\/p>\n<p>If Putin does indeed flee after Russia suffers <a href=\"https:\/\/www.19fortyfive.com\/2022\/12\/if-america-pushes-for-a-total-ukraine-victory-it-could-mean-nuclear-war\/\">defeat<\/a>, he wouldn\u2019t be the first dictator to seek refuge abroad. Uganda\u2019s Idi Amin fled to Saudi Arabia. The Central African Republic\u2019s Emperor Jean-B\u00e9del Bokassa wound up in France. Anastasio Somoza left Nicaragua for the United States and Paraguay. The Shah of Iran fled to France. Germany\u2019s Kaiser Wilhelm II settled in the Netherlands. The Soviet Union\u2019s Leon Trotsky went to Mexico.\n<\/p>\n<p>Once abroad, former potentates usually engage in \u00e9migr\u00e9 politics and plot their returns. Some refugees, like Vladimir Lenin and Ayatollah Khomeini, return victorious. Most former bigwigs fade away, becoming increasingly irrelevant to goings-on in the countries they once ruled with an iron fist.\n<\/p>\n<p>Whether or not Putin flees will depend on the extent of Russia\u2019s, probably inevitable, defeat.\n<\/p>\n<p>As long as he can position himself as the defender of Mother Russia and the protector of the nation, he is likely to be able to survive, even if Russia suffers continual setbacks.\n<\/p>\n<p>But there are two scenarios under which flight would become imperative. If Ukraine smashes the Russian armed forces and succeeds in driving them out of all its territory, including the Crimea and Donbas, Putin is unlikely to survive such a huge humiliation. If elites and masses then turn against him, Venezuela\u2019s warm climes may be Putin\u2019s only way out. It\u2019s also possible that Putin may be the victim of a coup d\u2019\u00e9tat well before defeat sets in. Were such a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.19fortyfive.com\/2022\/05\/russia-coup-putin-luttwak\/\">coup<\/a> to take place, Putin\u2019s only hope for survival would be flight.\n<\/p>\n<p>Galliamov\u2019s report is uncorroborated, but it does make sense.\u00a0After all, other dictators have been removed for far lesser crimes and debacles than Putin. And Putin knows that, regardless of which scenario turns out to be accurate, he will, sooner or later, be tried for war crimes and genocide at The Hague. And who better to betray and testify against him than his current inner circle?<\/p>\n<p>Putin\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/glavcom.ua\/world\/observe\/tsili-pidzemni-mista-rosijskij-opozitsioner-rozpoviv-pro-sekretni-bunkeri-putina-893245.html\" data-saferedirecturl=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?q=https:\/\/glavcom.ua\/world\/observe\/tsili-pidzemni-mista-rosijskij-opozitsioner-rozpoviv-pro-sekretni-bunkeri-putina-893245.html&#038;source=gmail&#038;ust=1670708798094000&#038;usg=AOvVaw1cmT1ZXO0alNT1OYLeIi6I\">reportedly<\/a>\u00a0has scores of bunkers, some apparently quite lavish, in which he hides\u2014from COVID-19, from the people he claims to serve, and the elites he has implicated in his crimes. He is already in exile and leaving Russia for Latin America would only be a logical next step.\n<\/p>\n<p>In my novel,\u00a0<em>Pitun\u2019s Last Stand<\/em>, the dictator plans a triumphant return to Russia, with the assistance of dubious emigres and European hangers-on. He eventually makes it to St. Petersburg, only to be humiliated before an adoring crowd.\n<\/p>\n<p>Like Pitun, the real Putin will, if exiled, probably attempt a come-back. That won\u2019t be easy from distant Venezuela, and unlike Lenin and the Ayatollah, Putin is likely to meet his alter ego\u2019s deservedly sad fate.\n<\/p>\n<p><em>A 19FortyFive Contributing Editor,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.newark.rutgers.edu\/about-us\/have-you-met-rutgers-newark\/alexander-motyl\">Dr. Alexander Motyl<\/a> is a professor of political science at Rutgers-Newark. A specialist on Ukraine, Russia, and the USSR, and on nationalism, revolutions, empires, and theory, he is the author of 10 books of nonfiction, including Pidsumky imperii (2009); Puti imperii (2004); Imperial Ends: The Decay, Collapse, and Revival of Empires (2001); Revolutions, Nations, Empires: Conceptual Limits and Theoretical Possibilities (1999); Dilemmas of Independence: Ukraine after Totalitarianism (1993); and The Turn to the Right: The Ideological Origins and Development of Ukrainian Nationalism, 1919\u20131929 (1980); the editor of 15 volumes, including The Encyclopedia of Nationalism (2000) and The Holodomor Reader (2012); and a contributor of dozens of articles to academic and policy journals, newspaper op-ed pages, and magazines. He also has a weekly blog, \u201cUkraine\u2019s Orange Blues.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Is Putin ready to bail? [embedded content] Last year I published a novel,\u00a0Pitun\u2019s Last Stand, which imagined Russia\u2019s descent into civil war and its leader\u2019s flight to Nice on the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1898270,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[547],"tags":[5458,7832,7831,3733,5066,3819,4280,6991],"class_list":["post-1771567","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-bongino-report","tag-bongino","tag-defeated","tag-flee","tag-putin","tag-ready","tag-report","tag-russia","tag-ukraine"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1771567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1771567"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1771567\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1898270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1771567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1771567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1771567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}