Is the assassination of Vladimir Putin the answer to ending the war in Ukraine? A group of Russian émigrés who have declared themselves the “Congress of People’s Deputies” and a Russian parliament in opposition have asked the West not only to support them in a campaign to overthrow Vladimir Putin, but to actively participate in it. This would be a serious mistake.
At a recent meeting in Warsaw, these émigrés, all of whom had at some point been elected parliamentarians in Russia, agreed on their “victory plan,” a seven-point program, to be presented during the upcoming NATO summit in Washington. Their fundamental view is that the war in Ukraine can only end with the overthrow of the Putin regime, and that means not only stricter sanctions and more weapons for kyiv – although they want those too – but also direct violence. This would include assassinating figures within his government, even if they can’t get to the man himself. In fact, as far as they are concerned, “it is no longer an option but simply a duty” of the West to help him carry out such assassinations in the name of generating “revolutionary action” within Russia.
Do we honestly assume that Moscow will not come after ours?
This “congress” claims to have 102 members, some of whom are active Russian parliamentarians who participate anonymously for their own safety. Its leader is Ilya Ponomarev, a former Russian deputy who took refuge in kyiv in 2016 after being accused of embezzlement. He has become famous for his connection to Russia’s Freedom Legion, a force recruited from Russians opposed to Putin, responsible for a series of small cross-border raids into Russia, as well as the National Republican Army (NRA).
The latter claims to be a partisan force operating inside Russia and has claimed to have been behind the murders of a virulent pro-war blogger, Vladlen Tatarsky, as well as Daria Dugina, the daughter of nationalist philosopher Alexander Dugin, in recent years. two years. The Russians, however, claim that the NRA is essentially a front for HUR, Ukrainian military intelligence. Many Western governments, in fact, also consider both this organization and the Russian Freedom Legion to be essentially controlled by HUR.
Of course, this “congress” has no legal backing and no proof that an electorate exists in Russia. In fact, Ponomaryov, who in January told the Moscow Times In his speech, the Russian president, who considered himself the “brain of the political transition” he was trying to bring about in Russia, openly admitted that he did not represent the consensus of the Russian people. When asked if they would have a choice in this revolution, he responded in appropriately Leninist fashion: “Absolutely not.”
In this context, it would be very easy to dismiss this “victory plan” as nothing more than the vacillations of disaffected emigrants playing politics from the safety of the West. The problem, however, is that, as the bloody war continues and it is clear that Putin’s notion of “peace” is the capitulation of Ukraine, there is a growing desperation in some quarters to find a tactic that can change the status quo. It may sometimes seem like a small step between concluding that this war, or at least the fundamental confrontation with the West and the refusal to accept Ukrainian sovereignty at its core, cannot end as long as Putin remains in the Kremlin, and thinking that killing to the old autocrat it would be a shortcut to peace.
The problem is that, quite apart from any considerations of international legality (remember that we are supposed to be the good guys and “well, they do it” is not a defence), the way Putin goes matters a great deal. There is considerable discontent with the war and Putin’s gerontocratic regime at home, within the elite and among soldiers and veterans. If he were to die next week, there is every chance that power would pass not to another septuagenarian, but to the next political generation, who can best be characterised as opportunistic kleptocrats, willing to parrot Putin’s paranoid nationalist rhetoric in order to stay in office, but more interested in the good life than in any crusade against the West.
However, any Western-backed assassination campaign, especially if it were able to penetrate the (frankly, formidable) protection surrounding Putin himself, would likely trigger not a democratic revolution but an explosion of anger and indignation. It is, of course, an imperfect and clumsy parallel, but even if Rishi Sunak has made it, if I read The spectators Data Center, right, with an approval rating of -55, how would the British feel if they were shot down by a Russian gunman? As things stand, the cross-border attacks by Russia’s Freedom Legion appear to have infuriated rather than convinced locals, despite being presented as a liberation campaign.
There may be circumstances in which Western policy shifts from “Putin must fail” to “Putin must fall” (the use of nuclear weapons, for example, would likely tip the balance). For now, however, we must remember that our experiences in Iraq, Afghanistan, and less overt campaigns suggest that we are much better at orchestrating regime change than at shaping and benefiting from what comes next.
Moreover, while the Kremlin does kill in the West, its targets have so far been limited to those it considers traitors, from the defector Alexander Litvinenko in London in 2006, to Maxim Kuzminov, the helicopter pilot who surrendered to the Ukrainians last year and was shot dead in Spain in February. If we start killing Russian politicians and officials, or even seem to support their killing, do we honestly assume that Moscow won’t go after ours?
The irony is that while some Western politicians seem willing, albeit largely behind closed doors, to fantasize about inciting coups or arming lone gunmen, they remain largely under-utilized by many of the opportunities that the West does have. They could reach out to ordinary Russians and challenge Putin’s toxic, xenophobic narratives, encourage the flight of the best and brightest, and generally do everything they can not only to undermine the current regime but to ensure that what follows its inevitable end is not an angry, vengeful repeat.
