If It's True That Putin Sacked Gerasimov, Here Is What It Might Mean--

 Report: Putin Fires Russian Head Of General Staff Gerasimov--

What does it mean? (Edit, do not share this until report is doubly confirmed)

This is a breaking story which I'm getting on top of. The source is Alexander Vindman, but as of now it is an unconfirmed rumor.

Gerasimov is the architect of Russia's military, and has been Chief of Staff since 2012. 

There are two possibilities in play here. First is that Putin needed a scapegoat for the early failure of a strategy which he himself designed. Second is that Gerasimov was the focal point for growing opposition and a possible Coup plot against Putin coming from the Russian military leadership. Either way, whether there was a Coup plot brewing or not, the firing of Gerasimov if true does not bode well for Putin's state of mind. 

As I have been covering for the last year in various articles (Vladimir Putin, The Man With His Shirt Off Caught With His Pants Down, parts 1 and 2) he has made serious errors in judgment, and miscalculated. Much of it has to do with his "bad bet" on a Trump second term. Likewise, his sloppy "amateur hour" FSB Keystone Cops assassination attempt on Navalny was a humiliating failure, still backfiring on him a year and a half after the fact. 

At this point, given that Russia has been forced to negotiate with Ukraine, and NATO is responding with military aid, not just sanctions, Putin is boxed in and may be fighting for his own survival now. 

Therefore there is reason to speculate that assuming the rumor is true, it is a combination of Putin's paranoia and that he is legitimately afraid of being removed. His power in Russia derived from his vast control of Russia's wealth, as titular head of Russia's Oligarchy. Russian enterprises could not exist without tendering "the Czar's Cut", meaning that no business of note could function unless Vlad got his "slice". 

That factor of Putin's personal financial wealth and power has been smashed by the sanctions which he had previously discounted. He likely did not expect Germany to fully climb aboard, based on his decades long profile of the Germans as being somewhat "Anti-American". (Those Americans who have lived in Germany are aware of the conflicted feelings of Germans regarding America's continued military presence there, a factor which Putin is intimately aware of after his KGB "Rezident" role in Berlin before the fall of the Wall) His profile of the new German Chancellor Scholz who comes out of the former "Red-Green" coalition may have been influenced by that view. 

I believe Putin believed Germany would not cancel the Nordstream Pipeline, and would hedge on full sanctions otherwise. He may have believed the same of France and the UK, who have enjoyed their business relationship with Russia's Oligarchs. 

What changed the equation? I would say that the ferocity of Ukraine's resistance, combined with the mass protests and condemnation around the world have disrupted Putin's plans for a quick invasion and surrender. China's defense of Putin has been likewise tepid. 

So, the master chessplayer and superspy has made a number of reckless and desperate moves in the past year or so, and bet the wrong horse in the US 2020 election. Now he is trying to cut his losses, declare victory, and retrench to come back to fight another day. 

The firing of Gerasimov, if confirmed, means that there is resistance to Putin's strategic gambit in the Russian military, which has huge implications. 

In November of 1989, when hundreds of thousands of Germans filled the streets of East Berlin and Leipzig demanding German unification, the East German Soviet puppet Erich Honecker demanded that Gorbachov give him the green light for using the Army to shoot the demonstrators down. Gorbachov calculated that neither the East German troops nor his Soviet soldiers would follow orders and shoot at the crowds. So he told Honecker not to give orders to shoot, and that it was all over. 

Honecker fled to the Chilean embassy and the government collapsed, and the German people themselves  tore down the Berlin Wall with the tools in their garages. Two years later, the Warsaw Pact was dead, and the Soviet Union itself collapsed, in what Putin later described as "The greatest political disaster of the 20th Century", which he watched unfold from the Soviet Embassy in East Berlin. 

Putin knows the difference between unrest and a revolution. His greatest fear is of a revolution at home. If he has shifted his strategy to negotiate an exit, and is purging the Army, I believe he is trying to head off a regime change and is at a point of maximum weakness. 

This is why he is at his most dangerous. If backed into a corner he is capable of anything. Therefore this next 48 hours are the most critical. NATO must maintain its unified stance, but Putin must be given a face saving route of retreat, to mitigate against an escalation of conflict that could be catastrophic. This is the moment at which getting the most equitable deal for all concerned must happen. 

I trust President Biden's judgment. He knows Putin and Russia. And I believe he would understand the implications of Gerasimov being fired. The next hours will tell.