Russian oppositionist, sociologist and ex-State Duma deputy Igor Yakovenko said in an interview with Unian that the collapse of Russia is inevitable.
"If we talk about trends, then the collapse of the Russian Empire is inevitable to one degree or another. There are strong, centrifugal tendencies that are not visible and not felt now, because they are suppressed by force. They were strong before. This is a referendum on the independence of Tatarstan in 1992, when the vast majority of the citizens of this country voted to secede from Russia. These are two Chechen wars. And if the imperial, cementing, holding state by force disappears now, then centrifugal movements will begin to prevail, and Russia will start to fall apart like a house of cards. And not only in the national republics (Tatarstan, Tyva, Yakutia, the republics of the North Caucasus), where the potential for secession is quite strong, but also in Russian regions, such as the Far East, the Urals, Siberia, Kamchatka, and so on. I think this trend will prevail. I do not claim that it will necessarily triumph, but with the defeat of Russia, it will begin to manifest itself.
Is it good or bad? Not the best period. It will be turmoil, the development of an imperialist war into a war of mafia clans to redistribute property and territories. In any case, most likely, after that, Russia will cease to threaten anyone as a single empire that desires to devour pieces of territory and devour people in neighboring countries, which we are now seeing in relation to Ukraine. If Russia remains within these borders, the threat will remain. Suppose the Russian Federation survives the period of disintegration. In that case, some of its parts will be quite able to begin to transform into something more civilized, including with the help of the Western world. However, there are no guarantees for this either.
And there are serious reasons to believe that if Russia remains within these borders, if it retains nuclear weapons and membership in the UN Security Council, then sooner or later an aggressive empire will revive in the Russian Federation, even if they now suffer a heavy defeat. Moreover, I am convinced that if Russia is now defeated and pushed back to the borders of 1991, and Putin's power remains, the Russian Federation will continue to fight, and the front line will simply become the border of 1991."
