Page 44 - Gorbachev News Today

Wright. what a weekend. what a last couple of days here. i mean it is really extraordinary. that moment, there was a moment, really i think it was saturday morning, when it felt like we were watching something really historic unfold right before our eyes and we may very well yet be watching that happen. >> we know this is just the beginning. but i think we make a real mistake in saying that vladimir putin may be fatally week or the end of his 23 years in power. this as a man as ruthless as atill...

Impact on the thinking around that. joining me now is ivo daalder, he served as the u.s. ambassador to nato from 2009 to 2013. thank you so much for joining me this afternoon, i wanted to start with something you tweeted out that in 1991, gorbachev survived a coup attempt, only to be out a few months later. as youre looking at the events of the last 48 hours, even with the deals struck, the mysterious deal. what is your sense, at this point, of putins long term grasp on power? >> well no one kno...

Yeltsin, or rafael gorbachev, the perpetrators of those who served long prison sentences. none of these people that were involved in this potential coup, this potential civil war, only 200 miles from the russian capital, are facing any punishment. not at this point, anyways. that makes putin look weak. he had to do a u-turn for all the statements he made in the morning by the afternoon, saying that, actually, prigozhin can go scot-free, despite the biggest challenge to his leadership in over two...

Of the arsenal. and against gorbachev in 1991. that was a coup, and the arsenal was under control. i dont want to scare people. you worry about mistakes and instability and whether or not the processes that protected us from mistakes between russia and the united states are still in tact. with the defense -- with a military force now coming in play, the wagner group, that is very different than in an internal russian military taking over, say, gorbachev. that will be the primary focus, and the u...

History, it produces these extraordinary moments, but it produces these characters as wealth. yes, it certainly does. i think i used the word volcanic before. that certainly applies to prigozhin, not really to vladimir putin, more quiet, thoughtful man, you would have said, if he hadnt invaded ukraine so casually 16 months ago. but it is partly, i think, and these are big judgments which perhaps one shouldnt make, but it does have something to do with the internal passivity of russian society. g...

Channels, we continue to see him putting out messages. they havent shut down the internet. they are perfectly capable of doing that. and at some point, they may do that. and again, each step that putin takes, he has to measure against if i do that, does that lead to panic? if i do this, does it actually lead to almost, you know, a path to civil war? and so the calibrations are quite complex. and putin has never had to make these sorts of decisions. its quite a conundrum. >> and putin no doubt, n...

A look back at the previous biggest threats surviving by the Kremlin since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. | World News

Powerful army in russia, compared to the wagner group. so, all of this diminishes his power. in 1991 there was a coup against gorbachev, he survived it, he was out for months later. people are really questioning all of that regarding putins power. and as for zelenskyy i think its positive for ukraine in the sense that hes been saying that russia was unstable all along, now we see that. the wagner group was a force to be reckoned with inside of ukraine against the ukrainian military. that will be...

Gorbachev, and then it all collapsed in three days, quite extraordinary. 1993, the last time there was any real major violence within the russian federations borders. that also was an extraordinary occasion with the army opening fire on the headquarters of the mayor of the city. just extraordinary stuff. russian history tends to produce these sudden extraordinary moments, but the big question, of course, still is, why did prigozhin give the order to turn back? we will have to wait to know why th...

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