Europe fears the collapse of Russia — Yakovleff

This opinion was shared by retired French general Michel Yacovleff.

When that happens, we will have Yugoslavia, but 10 times more powerful, with thousands of nuclear warheads. And this is what Europe is very afraid of. The problem it sees is civil war, which I think is a very plausible hypothesis. Today, Russia has 17 armies. The situation is similar to Lebanon in 1973. There are many people who have objective reasons to be at each other's throats. For example, subjects of the federation who declare independence because their mineral resources are exported and the money goes to Moscow.

Michelle Yakovleff

Retired French general

At the same time, in his opinion, the collapse of the Putin regime is a matter of time, and economic problems are already significant.

The Russians already have problems with oil exports, and their revenues from gas and oil sales clearly do not meet their expectations. So, Putin has eaten up most of his reserves. An economic standstill for Russia in 2025 is not excluded, and there are factors.

Among the factors leading to the "explosion" in Russia, the general names the flow of resources from the center to the periphery thanks to the blood money that other regions "earn" from the war in Ukraine, as well as the political confrontation between the periphery and the center.

The confrontation with the center is intensifying. All these republics, subjects of the federation, as the Russians say, whose resources are exploited exclusively in the interests of St. Petersburg and Moscow, while the center sends 50 times fewer soldiers to the front. The logic of things even before the war predicted the collapse of the Putin regime for reasons of demography, economic structure and governance.

Even before February 2022, Putin’s Russia was not a regime that could last forever. It was heading straight for the wall for the same reason the Soviet Union did. It only accelerated in February 2022. At some point, it will collapse, it’s a natural evolution. But Ukraine should survive until then, Yakovleff believes.