The following is either pure speculation or what I see with mine-own two eyes in the news feeds. Putin appears to be a dead man walking and may not be with us much longer.
The past few days, film clips show Putin enduring what seems like serious health symptoms that some experts believe is Parkinson’s disease or, since he’s been shadowed by a well-known cancer doctor, some active cancer. The mine-own two eyes bit is simply limited to the trajectory between these and prior appearances in the past year. He’s going rather fast at this rate. In this case, better the hope that his successor will be either a domestic pragmatist or at least inept at empire; those rather than devil that is Putin.
There are scenarios and here I speculate. What if, what if all the king’s doctors and all the king’s men, what if they, in keeping with their national character, were slowly poisoning their king in such a way that all the theater surrounding his ‘disease’ treatment were really meant to slowly remove Putin to his eternal rest? Gut feeling? When I see the greyish pallor of his face in pictures, this is what comes to mind. If this be the case, I could imagine his final ‘treatments’ concluding in the next month or two. Speculation.
In either case, there will quickly come a time when Putin is at least unable to attend to his ‘duties’ of making war and empire, certainly a very dangerous time for the world as apparently Putin has set in place a semi-automated world nuclear holocaust should he ever be taken out. The future of the earth will literally be in the hands of a very few people that will have to actively disobey and deceive Putin into believing that he has successfully avenged his own grandiose ambition; this before he is permanently dispatched. It’s possible that he could simply disappear as a successor is publicly announced, meanwhile, Putin would finish out his days in a nuclear cellar, fed a diet of lies until he succumbs.
In any eventuality, there will be another to take Putin’s place. We’re taught to be pessimistic, expect the worst and we should be prepared for it. If it be someone ambitious and cruel, that person won’t have anywhere near the total control of the system that Putin has/had accumulated over the past 25 years. That person may be a bonfire followed by multiple quick revolutions until stability returns. The best-case scenario would be a ‘moderate’ that wants to reintegrate with the world, at least initially. That’s the best anyone can hope for. The worst case is that there will be few of us left to debate it because one unhinged sick man surrounded by people sold out to lies, when they then push the red buttons and then it’s all over.