ANALYSIS
If Russian President Vladimir Putin, 71, is a modern-day czar after holding onto power for nearly a quarter century — an autocrat largely unaccountable to his people — he does lack something that made the Romanov dynasty a dynasty: a successor.
Mr. Putin is expected to easily win re-election to another four-year term when Russia holds its manipulated elections on March 15-17. If his inability to declare victory in the Ukraine war has weakened his grip on power, it is also far from obvious who might succeed him — or how Mr. Putin might be replaced. In this episode of History As It Happens, two experts on Russia and European security draw on Soviet history to explain what might come after Mr. Putin leaves power, whether it happens tomorrow or in another decade.
Historian Liana Fix of the Council on Foreign Relations and political scientist Maria Snegovaya of the Center for Strategic & International Studies outline possible succession scenarios. One might be similar to what happened in 1982 when Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev died and was replaced by the Communist hardliner Yuri Andropov. Another involves a less confrontational outcome vis a vis the West: a “Khrushchev-type succession” that followed the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953. The two scholars expanded on these ideas in a policy paper for the Council on Foreign Relations, “Leadership Change in Russia.”
History As It Happens is available at washingtontimes.com or wherever you find your podcasts.
