So how does this end for Putin?

[pandr32]

For years he has played the strong man--smarter than everyone (at least as far as he's concerned). He has been so unwavering it is difficult to imagine how he is taking the world-wide humiliation. What will he do next?
In our house we have been discussing this and the consensus is that he will double down on his strong man tactics and fury. He has created his ruler persona step by step with an objective, it seems, to out maneuver all others or to form alliances with other ruthless leaders of nations--in order to sit in power.
He has been so sure of himself, his superior intellect, and his skills he underestimated Zelensky and the Ukraine people. He also underestimated the whole Western world and their hope to have a better life for themselves and their children. At least most of them.
So how does this end?
History tells us psychopathic leaders like Putin don't see the light and change their ways. They are stopped through conquest, poison, are shot, stabbed or similar. Since Putin doesn't trust anyone we cannot expect it to be easy to get to him to seize him or for someone to dispatch him to the great unknown. If he is not stopped he will likely continue to be dangerous.
Could his oligarchs and officers stand up to him and wrest power from him even if he is in hiding somewhere? Is he hiding with the ability to overrule resistance? The people of Russia appear to not want war.
Ideas?

[Ocelot II]

1. Maybe like Hitler?

[pandr32]

3. That would be helpful.

[smirkymonkey]

37. I would like to see him go the Ceasescu route.

Only because it will be faster and I think he needs to go asap. Also, I don't think his minions are as fanatical about him as Hitler's were to him, nor do I think they agree with his plans for the future of Russia.

He seems trapped to me, though. I don't think there is any good way out of this for him.

[PufPuf23]

52. I find that Putin is so cornered worrying because of what

a spiteful defeated man might do.

Perhaps there should be a standing offer from Ukraine and NATO for Putin to step down to retire to live out life in relative comfort and safety?

IMO Putin has shown himself a war criminal worthy of capital punishment.

To focus solely on Putin ignores the likely fact that his type of malevolence is probably deeper than his person with others jostling for who would be Putin's successor.

I worry that the crisis will not end until Putin dies by whatever means, and some of those means might mean accelerations not an end to war.

In any case the World has changed in a major fashion and there will be time before things settle to a new norm.

If there is a new norm. My concern is that humanity is facing a cascade of overlapping crisis.

[smirkymonkey]

54. I just don't trust him or any "deals" he might try to make.

If I could choose, I would opt for taking him down ASAP. It's too risky for the entire world to let him live.

[PufPuf23]

55. Agree Putin gone ASAP and death is preferable.

But if he goes quietly and willingly, the option of allowing him to live in some secure exile ala Napolean gives him an out.

The worse scenario is Putin going full hell bent on angry and narcistic destruction with only his intimates available to curtail before the damage done.

[roamer65]

2. A military coup d'etat.

[JanMichael]

4. Hopefully bad really bad really really bad. Like non-existent bad.

[pandr32]

59. I could go along with that.

[lapfog_1]

5. I hope like this ( trigger warning )

[Pachamama]

34. I'll Duce Treatment has my vote

[Wounded Bear]

6. I get a "Hitler in the bunker" vibe here...

I hope he's not getting suicidal crazy.

[Deuxcents]

7. Assassination by poison or bullet?

[dflprincess]

18. Or perhaps he'll just fall out a window.

That seems to happen a lot in Russia.

[SallyHemmings]

8. Not soon enough

Take tfg with you

[CentralMass]

9. It all depends on how many loyal like minded sycophants he has on his side.

[no_hypocrisy]

10. Like Alexei Navalny I hope.

[pandr32]

60. ITrading places

[Tickle]

11. There will be no winners

How sad is this 😕 there will be thousands of dead people and animals. Putin will either be killed or kill him self.
For what? What will be gained from this horrible war/conflict? What do we call what’s going on?

[barbtries]

21. War.

'twas always thus.

[Lithos]

12. He will be retired

Something like a "medical" emergency will happen and Putin will be shunted aside into a "safe" house. From there, he will likely suffer some "accident".

TBH, looking at the pictures, he does not appear to be in the same state of health he was in 8-10 years ago. Yeah, some of it is age, but I think he's got something going on - so this is probably not as implausable as it seems.

[mahina]

19. I've been thinking the same. I'm sure he's very suspicious

Of Everyone around him right now

Hopefully for good reason

[Beachnutt]

13. Muammar Gaddafi style

I hope

[barbtries]

14. i don't know,

but I'm thinking, not well.

and i hope i'm right.

[Scrivener7]

15. An odd and fatal stomach complaint or a completely unsuspicious fall from a window.

[Crunchy Frog]

16. I'm hoping it ends with a coup and a firing squad.

[TygrBright]

17. My fifty cents is on defenestration. n/t

[Tomconroy]

20. Hard to believe he could be talked down from this. Russian

Military has to take him out.

[unblock]

22. History is full of dictators who cannot be touched except by wholesale revolution or conquest

Such people are usually extraordinarily adept at surrounding themselves with loyal people

People chosen for their loyalty
Rewarded for their loyalty
Paid to be loyal
Punished swiftly and severely if disloyal
In short, extremely well trained to be loyal.

For the most part, such lieutenants are simply incapable of acting disloyal to their dictator no matter what.


Now, it is possibly, particularly if the dictator fails them. If they were promised something that doesn't materialize. But for the most part, a dictator's undoing usually comes from outside. Not always, but usually.

[relayerbob]

28. True

But the oligarchs have a LOT of money. All they need is one key person to open the door at the right time.

[empedocles]

30. trump surrounded himself with people meeting the above qualifications.

Already it's not working too well for trump.

[unblock]

42. Fortunately for us, Donnie was utterly incompetent

He never really pulled off the whole dictator thing, not for lack of trying. He was always a wannabe, never quite the real thing.

Still, he was ultimately defeated from the outside, by biden/Harris and the millions of us, who voted for them, with enough margin to overcome Republican cheating.

He wasn't brought down from within, unless you count pence refusing to go along with the ridiculous plan to just ignore the election results.

[Dawson Leery]

23. Western secret ops removing him would be best.

[Fiendish Thingy]

25. Best if you want WWIII.

It has to be an inside job by a group who want to save Russia from ruin.

[unblock]

44. A successful western op against Putin pretty much requires inside cooperation

We're not going to be able to just seal team 6 him.

[Fiendish Thingy]

24. Hopefully conversations between the military and the oligarchs are happening now. Nt

[Buckeyeblue]

26. Putin's days are numbered

I suspect he'll be taken out quickly. The world is basically against him. Someone needs to take control. That person or persons may be held up as heroes.

[relayerbob]

27. Coup, either shot at that time, or shortly thereafter

[Hekate]

29. As retired Gen Barry McCaffrey pointed out: We're only 4 days in. (Maybe 5 or 6 by now.)

FFS, less than a week! Wars last for years and years and years.

Unless one of his inner circle SUCCESSFULLY puts him out of our misery, the Ukrainians are not going to be free of his murderous gang for some time.

[uponit7771]

39. Desert Storm lasted 4 days against a WELL armed (but untrained) Iraq military

[former9thward]

58. Uh no.

The Iraqi military offered no opposition and melted away. No comparison with the current situation.

[Lancero]

31. Hopefully, quickly. Optionally, painfully.

[BigmanPigman]

32. I hope he is poisoned and dies a slow and painful death.

[lindysalsagal]

33. Goes home in the am in last night's leather pants, new hickey, black eye, broken nose, loose teeth,

car smashed and impounded, his apartment burgled, his passport, credit cards and savings bonds gone, phone broken, and the bar said never return, as did the woman in the next room (and her gangland friends) when he woke up.

But I'm just speculating.

[uponit7771]

40. +1

[Blasphemer]

35. Only two options that I can see.... both lead to Putin's end

1)NATO puts boots on the ground and we have all out war. Hopefully, the military would turn on Putin before he launches a nuclear attack, but we may need to prepare for that reality.
2)There is a mass anti-Putin uprising and the Russian government and military completely collapse.

Either way, the world needs to prepare to support Russia in the aftermath. If we don't, a new Putin will rise up, just as what happened after the cold war ended.

[PortTack]

41. Both of your summations are spot on. It could go either way. In the meantime we must do

Everything we can to Support Ukraine, our democratic leaders and denounce the disinformation cult in our country

It’s not the Russian ppl, and yes they will need our support when it finally ends

[Septua]

36. My favorite scenario is...

..his military ministers taking him out, one way or another.

[Justice matters.]

53. Mine also. Plus his bunch of yesmen thugs always protecting him. nt

[C_U_L8R]

38. Ides of March approaching.

Et tu, Boris?

[Deuxcents]

48. Good call..I forgot about that...

[DinahMoeHum]

43. Done in by his own troops, preferably.

[airmid]

45. I wonder how his buddy Semion Mogilevich is taking the financial news?

I know he’s Ukrainian but he’s been Putin’s buddy since the 1990’s and despite several International warrants for his criminal activities , has lived openly and freely in Moscow. It’s rumored much of Putin’s money actually comes through him.

[58Sunliner]

46. I'm hoping for the military. Maybe he will stroke out, or a big MI. He looks stressed.

I don't see him folding. He will have to be put down like the rabid dog that he is.

[cachukis]

47. What a read. How does it end?

Speculation inspires. Evidence hones the speculation.
"Danger, danger, Will Robinson."

[Sogo]

49. Sign at war protest in Europe a couple days ago:

"Let's fast forward to the part where you die in a bunker."

[Ohio Joe]

50. I'm expecting the oligarchs take him out

I’d guess poison.

[jmowreader]

51. About the same as it ended for Beria

Here's a recipe for tyranny. Mix twenty pounds of Josef Stalin, fifty pounds of Pol Pot, fifteen of Chairman Mao, five pounds of Kim il Sung, forty pounds of Hitler and all of Donald Trump. Add five pounds of rotten horseradish and a pint of Bitrex. Roll in highway salt and bake in an oven at 500 degrees until it's hard enough to drive a tank over without damage. The end result of destroying your kitchen will be Lavrentij Beria.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavrentiy_Beria

To condense his end to the barest minimum, after the Politburo decided it had enough of Beria's shit they arrested him in the Kremlin. After it got dark they stuffed him in the trunk of a car and took him to the Moscow Military District's command bunker. There he was tried by a classic kangaroo court and found guilty of treason, espionage, terrorism, contaminating everyone's precious bodily fluids, sexual depravity, and everything else they could think of. They executed the bastard by shooting him in the face from point-blank range and buried him in a mass grave.

Give it about a week and you'll hear rumors that Putin died of a sudden illness. What will actually have happened is they'll perform a classic GRU execution - he'll be cremated before he dies.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

56. I don't know but they need an exit option for him. For the sake

Of the world and for the Russian people.

[hunter]

57. Something between Hitler in his bunker and Howard Hughes on his Learjet.

If he's lucky.