The Putin Domino Theory

When one man goes, everything changes

Russia’s influence deep in the heart of the US government was brutally exposed this week. Trump envoy Steve Witkoff was outed as a Putin asset, accepting Russia’s maximalist demands over Ukraine as an “American peace plan” and then advising the Russians on the best way to sell it to Trump. It worked.

This won’t come as a surprise to anyone who has been paying attention to how Russia has quietly taken over the steering wheel of US policy across the years. Trump’s first visit to Moscow in the eighties was hosted by the Russian intelligence services and on his return, he blared Russian propaganda across US media. Musk and the shadowy people behind MAGA all have a direct line to the Kremlin.

They’ll tell you it’s not about politics it’s about business — making lots and lots of cash wherever you can — but in the end everything is about politics. They’re useful idiots, dazzled by the dollar, just how Putin likes it.

One of Putin’s great strengths is finding what motivates people — money, racism, religion — and then using it to support Russia’s strategic aims. On one level it’s not new — the Soviet Union has been surreptitiously interfering in the internal affairs of countries from its earliest days.

While the tactics are the same, the difference now is that Putin is not ideological. Under his rule, Russia has become a Mafia state, seeking power and wealth for a tiny circle of gang bosses. That requires eliminating or subduing or controlling rivals everywhere through insidious means, allowing Putin to achieve his strategic aims.

The often repeated line is that when Putin goes he’ll be replaced by someone in his own image or someone even worse. There are several reasons why that won’t matter

Putin has a singular vision, fuelled by advisors like Alexandr Dugin: recapturing the power of the former Soviet Union through a new Russian Empire. His path to that involves weakening rivals - buying elections, funding extremists who can disrupt other countries from within, sabotage, cyber war.

But Putin will not be around forever. He might not be around for much longer. He’s perched on the top of a powder keg of his own making and he can’t get off.

His big gamble, the war in Ukraine, has failed. He will never be able to achieve his war aims. In the process he’s lost hundreds of thousands of Russian lives and he’s put the economy on a path to destruction which may not be recoverable. To keep the economy turning, he needs the war to keep going. But there is always going to be a limit to that.

Since the calamitous invasion of Ukraine, Putin has presided over a huge loss of Russian power and prestige. Russia’s seat on the G8, gone. It’s Middle East power base in Syria, lost. Banned from sporting and cultural events. A huge brain drain of young talent.

In a recent poll of Russians, 41% said he would stay in office until he died, 23% that he would be removed by a palace coup. With each passing week, the chances increase for either of those options.

When he does finally go, any replacement will not have the same vision. Oligarchs will want to go back to making loads of cash. Anyone else will be preoccupied with ensuring Russia doesn’t collapse economically and the Russian Federation doesn’t fall apart.

Carrying on the work of the man who made those last two things likely is not going to happen. Instead we will undoubtedly see the pattern that follows all deposed dictators: everything bad is blamed on the former occupant of high office. There will be pain while its dealt with but a new path will be charted. A clean hands approach is the only thing that will allow the new man to stay in charge.

Russian experts have identified the most likely men in line to replace Putin. Mihail Mishustin, 59, is Russia’s prime minister and an economist who was allegedly opposed to Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine. Sergei Sobyanin, 66, is Moscow’s Mayor. His big skill has been in keeping Russia’s capital lines open. Sergei Kiriyenko, 62, is Putin’s deputy chief of staff but has a reputation as a liberal reformer. Boris Yeltsin made him the youngest ever prime minister in 1998. Alexei Dyumin, 52, former deputy director of the military intelligence bureau GRU, has seen first hand the military failures in Ukraine.

Any of these candidates would want to follow a different path, one that would attempt to bring Russia back into the international fold as the only way to combat the terrible consequences of Putin’s catastrophically failed leadership.

But the abandonment of Putin’s plan will have huge repercussions for the world too.

For a quarter of a century, Putin has funded the most disruptive element in any country, aiming to cause social division and thereby weaken national strength.

We saw the extent of his interference in the recent chaos at TwitterX when Musk decided to reveal the country of origin of many accounts. A staggering 80% of MAGA conflict accounts were revealed to be Russian troll farms operating out of Nigeria, Bangladesh and the Russian Federation. Many of the disruptive and violent English Patriot accounts were also exposed.

We know Russia interfered directly in the 2016 US election to get Trump elected. According to the US intelligence community the operation, codename Project Lakhta, was ordered directly by Putin. From comments Putin himself made there was a similar operation in 2024.

But it wasn’t just at election time. The US has been flooded with Russian money to fund Far Right groups and influencers with powerful voices. In September 2024, Tim Pool, David Rubin and Benny Johnson were caught up in a Russian funding scandal, they claim unwittingly.

Russian money is everywhere in the US, in Congress, in the right wing media, in tech, throwing gasoline on the wildfire that’s sweeping the nation. Now imagine what the landscape would look like if that money dried up.

In the same year Putin was getting Trump elected, Russia interfered in the Brexit vote that took the UK out of the EU, a move that weakened both parties. Though disputed by those who want to believe Brexit was the result of a desire for sovereignty, many sources say there is plenty of evidence of Russia at work.

The Russia Report, published by the Intelligence and Security Committee, concluded that Russian interference in UK politics is commonplace. Right wing think tanks have been well-funded by Putin. And the Conservative Party has accepted millions of pounds in donations from individuals and businesses linked to Russia.

Disgraced former Prime Minister Boris Johnson even appointed the son of a KGB officer and oligarch, Evgeny Lebedev, to the House of Lords, against the advice of the intelligence services who were convinced of ties between Lebedev and the Kremlin.

Now there are calls for an investigation into Nigel Farage’s Far Right Reform party. Farage has long spouted Russian propaganda. Recently his close friend Nathan Gill, the head of Reform in Wales was jailed for ten and a half years for taking bribes from Russia.

In France, an investigation found the Far Right National Rally party of Marie LePen had served as a “communication channel” for Russia. In Germany last month, lawmakers accused the Far Right AfD party — supported by Elon Musk — of being “a sleeper cell loyal to Russia”. In Hungary, Putin placeman Viktor Orban continues to do all he can to disrupt EU business.

The web Putin has created reaches everywhere. The world has been made a significantly worse place because of it. But it’s held in place by Putin’s vision.

When he’s gone and there’s a new person in the Kremlin, the Far Right may suddenly find their flood of funding cut off. You can’t beg to return to the international order while you’re paying extremists to disrupt the countries you want to be your friends.

If you want to defeat the Far Right in your country, there’s now a clear path. Focus all energy on one man, Putin. If he’s defeated in Ukraine, the entire edifice he’s created will come crashing down and it will happen fast.

The world will look very different.