Mark Galeotti
speaker
200 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Jul 2026
last heard 15 Jul
Mark Galeotti’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 1.
Appearances
Not that I think that would happen.
But so I think mobilisation, yes, and more likely to be after the September elections than before.
But as I said, I'd be delighted to be proven wrong.
This is absolutely a gamble, and particularly it's a gamble because, remember, Putin, for all his fascination with matters military, doesn't seem to understand much about it.
And I think he has this rather sort of simplistic notion that 200,000 extra troops means you're going to necessarily advance at such and such a greater pace, whereas there are no guarantees of that whatsoever.
If, though, this gamble is thoroughly unsuccessful, if he can't see Kramatorsk, Slavyansk, the last two of the so-called fortress cities, brought under his control, I think we move into really uncharted territory because I think he would begin to become something of a lame duck figure, even as regards Russians.
Remember, Putin has created this system in which everyone obeys out of fear or out of self-interest.
It's not loyalty to Putin that manifests itself.
And if you begin to feel that actually Putin is going to drag the whole system down, that's the point when you might begin to think that the risk benefit assessment of trying to move against him is beginning to change.
Up to now, the view has been a lot of people are very unhappy with his leadership.
But the point is, the risks seem to be so great and the chances of success so limited.
So basically, everyone just kept their head down, just hope things worked out.
If, in fact, things look as if they're going to be heading in a much more dangerous direction.
if you're beginning to get as is likely protests because of mobilization and a fear of further mobilization waves if the economy continues to slide down into deeper stagnation if you can't you know people can't fill up their cars well you know put all that together and people might start to think in fact that the smart money is not on continuing to stay with putin but to move against him
And, you know, again, I think it's one of these first mover issues.
At present, no one really wants to be the one to start those dangerous conversations because you don't know if the person you're talking to can be trusted.
But once that conversation starts, I mean, remember when we saw the Prigogine mutiny.
A few thousand people could spear almost all the way to Moscow, not because they battled their way through and there were some kind of Spartans taking on the Persians, but basically because a lot of the security forces along the line of march decided, well, we're not going to join the mutiny, but nor are we going to do anything to stop it.
We'll just see what happens.
And I think Putin might find, and ironically might discover what actually happened around him in East Germany when it collapsed, is that a state which can look really powerful and dangerous and forceful can evaporate surprisingly quickly when everyone decides that actually this is not basically the right horse to back.
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