Vladimir Putin is weakened and his opponents are preparing to strike
CBC
Exactly when Vladimir Putin will fall from power, Alexey Minyaylo isn't sure — but he believes it's close.
Minyaylo, 37, is perhaps best known in Russia for his efforts to get non-Kremlin affiliated candidates on the ballot for the 2019 Moscow city elections.
In the protests that followed, he was accused of inciting a riot and spent almost three months in jail.
"The vertical of power is shaking," Minyaylo told CBC News via video interview from his home in Moscow, where he has remained since Putin's Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine, with all the risks that brings.
Some of Minyaylo's public projects include polls that show real public opinion on the war and finding safe ways for Russians to express an anti-war stance.
He's also part of what he calls a "grassroots campaign" to lay the groundwork for a more democratic Russia after Putin — who turns 70 today — is gone.
"Russians don't believe anything can change. So if we set up some vision of the future, that might work, " Minyaylo said.
He says his group — which he won't identify for safety reasons — will soon release a new vision for a post-Putin Russia that he hopes ordinary Russians will connect with. He hopes it will also contain a commitment by Western nations to ease sanctions and eventually give Russians a chance to return to normal life.
With Russia's army in disarray in Ukraine and a mass mobilization push to enlist hundreds of thousands of Russian men sparking unrest across the vast country, Minyaylo believes the pre-conditions for Putin's demise are taking shape.
"Putin is very good at holding power, so I don't believe that anything can be done just by people revolting," he said. "The only feasible way, in my mind, is some part of the establishment persuading Putin to step out of the way."
Other longtime Russia watchers concur with his assessment.
"Putin's position is definitely weakening and the more the situation escalates, the quicker the process is," said Abbas Gallyamov, a former Putin speechwriter who is now a political analyst.
"The elites are at least beginning to act and they see that he has lost control over the situation," said Gallyamov, who spoke to CBC News from his home in Israel, where he has lived since 2018.
Some of the most striking signs of Putin's weakening grip on the country's mechanisms of power have been unprecedented and stinging attacks on the country's military leadership for their conduct of the war.
