>Not so sure about this. That a handful of aggressive and hungry Russo-Warlords with Nukes is any improvement over Putin.

They will fight between them with their remaining soviet weapons, since they are not competent to fight any large country. Maybe some of those would actually become a democracy.

> They will fight between them with their remaining soviet weapons

Says who? They can just as well harass non-Russian neighbouring states. Or quite likely form some kind of

> since they are not competent to fight any large country

That doesn't prevent them from trying though.

> Maybe some of those would actually become a democracy.

Democracy in such states is an illusion. You are either USA with sustainable, refined over time, extremely restricted (2 parties, electors, strong continuity of the government of the selected few) and deeply rooted in tradition mechanisms of democracy, or you are just a vassal to a state with a good propaganda.

Да ну. A 2 party state is barely better than a 1 party state, and electors are a fancy way to circumvent 1 person 1 vote. It's deeply rooted mechanisms of something, but not exactly democracy )))

Why? It's actually much closer to a classical democracy. Remember that "dēmos" was never the same thing as the "óxlos".

Ex sovitet/communist states prove that democracy is possible. Go ont hose countries subrteddits and ask them if they feel they are vassals or if they would prefer to be part of USSR,

I know imperialists prefer to see the small countries as brainwashed nations that need to be put back in their place and probably this is the reason Putoin is threatening this countries all the time, they show non brainwashed Russians that democracy works, that you can live better then during Stalin or Putin regime, that cooperation works.

Wow, what a rant. You don't really travel much, do you? Given that you srsly experience the world through "countries subreddits". JFYI, Reddit is something rather obscure in ex-soviet states, especially to non-teens.

Sorry, but when just a few of many countries had managed to barely setup an election process, but can't go on without some violent political crisis every 10 years, that is hardly a functional and sustainable democracy.

What does this have to do with Russians anyway? It's a general principle, which works all ways with all actors. The fact that some west-leaning ex-soviet states are hard on censorship and restriction of Russian media illustrates my point perfectly.

Americans loosing sleep over the idea that TikTok is a threat to national security is another good illustration of this general principle.

See, one really doesn't have to be an imperialist to assess how popularity-based systems can be hijacked in the era when internet and targeted propaganda exist.

Russia seems to be throwing it's entire war machine at Ukraine. It deployed units, and conscripts, from all over Russia, including the Far East (in fact sourcing conscripts predominantly from poorer regions, and preferentially not ethnic Russians). Chop that machine into 4 or 5 pieces and it's far less scary.

Even the nukes, scary as they could be, are less of a threat when the individual actors are smaller and weaker. They may not even be able to maintain these nukes. And even if they are capable of using them, they are at a more precarious position than eg. Putin at the helm of Mighty Russia.

> Even the nukes, scary as they could be, are less of a threat when the individual actors are smaller and weaker. They may not even be able to maintain these nukes. And even if they are capable of using them, they are at a more precarious position than eg. Putin at the helm of Mighty Russia.

I'm not sure "the people with nukes would be in a precarious position" is the comforting statement you intended it to be.

Big, united Russia with lots of nukes can afford to use them much more than 5 small, weak post-Russias, each with some nukes.

If nothing else, these post-Russias would struggle to afford even more to upkeep and upgrade the stash of nukes. And would be easier to neutralize too...

> If nothing else, these post-Russias would struggle to afford even more to upkeep and upgrade the stash of nukes.

Again, not comforting. "Might as well use them on <hated neighbor>!"

>Chop that machine into 4 or 5 pieces and it's far less scary.

Ask the people living on the Borders of Latvia, Estonia or Georgia what they think of that. These warlords won't respect borders.

>even if they are capable of using them, they are at a more precarious position than eg. Putin at the helm of Mighty Russia.

I think they have even more incentive to use them, far less consequences if they do. Losing your position as warlord of some Fiefdom is a lot less scary then losing your position as the Dictator of a nation with a top 10 GDP, a permanent UN Security Council seat and having personal wealth in the Hundreds of Billions?

Milosevic of Serbia was taken to court. Gaddafi was captured and killed before any court could protect him. Putin is never going to stand trial, unless somehow Russia rats him out (but I struggle to imagine that).

Smaller dictators can do less harm, not more.

>Putin is never going to stand trial, unless somehow Russia rats him out (but I struggle to imagine that).

I'm sure Serbs and Libyans had said the same about Milosevic and Gaddafi for years before they were removed from power.