From Stratfor’s latest 10-year forecast:

…we do not think the Russian Federation can exist in its current form for the entire decade. Its overwhelming dependence on energy exports and the unreliability of expectations on pricing make it impossible for Moscow to sustain its institutional relations across the wide swathe of the Russian Federation. We expect Moscow’s authority to weaken substantially, leading to the formal and informal fragmentation of Russia…

Without the FSB inspiring genuine terror, the fragmentation of the Russian Federation will not be preventable.

These days, terror works best with bread and circuses. The necessary inputs for a Hunger Games scenario are there:

  • Russians are dangerously dependent on television for vital information and life-shaping experiences. Reality shows and various we’ve-got-talents are more than simply “big” or “successful”.
  • Russian TV broadcasts poisonous, mind-altering mixtures of the real and the unreal: see Pomerantsev, Shteyngart. Donbass as a sequel to Survivor.
  • The Russian capital is already a vampire sucking life out of the provinces and staging postmodern shows, half fruit juice, half real blood.
  • Moscow has nukes and “Bomb Voronezh” is becoming less and less a joke. Pro-Kremlin forces have no problems razing “Russian” places like Debaltsevo. Getting ready for Dark Days.
  • A force made up of Donbass fighters, Chechen paramilitaries, ex-FSB toughies and ex-security guards could function as “Peacekeepers”.
  • District 3 looks like a pliant sharashka, and District 13 like a defiant one.

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