Economist and former Kremlin advisor Sergei Guriev on Friday warned that Russia may develop into like “North Korea on steroids” when President Vladimir Putin is changed, saying the present political system would doubtless collapse when a brand new chief takes the reins.
His feedback come forward of the funeral of the Soviet Union’s final chief Mikhail Gorbachev on Saturday.
Putin, who paid his respects to Gorbachev on the Moscow hospital the place the 91-year-old died on Tuesday, is not going to attend the service.
Putin is understood to have had a strained relationship with Gorbachev, who ushered in sweeping reforms that in the end led to the autumn of the Soviet Union.
Speaking to CNBC’s Steve Sedgwick on the Ambrosetti Forum in Italy, Guriev stated it was extraordinarily troublesome to foretell what would possibly occur when Putin is finally changed as president.
“Regimes like this change in very unpredictable ways,” Guriev stated. “It’s very hard to predict what will come after Putin. The reason for that is Putin has built his regime in a way nobody can replace him.”
“He built the regime in a way that without him, the system will not function. People around him don’t trust each other, sometimes hate each other, so if he is gone the system will change somehow,” he stated.
“So, probably initially it will be some kind of ultra-nationalist guy or military junta, but it will not last for long exactly because the system is built around Putin. And eventually, I think the system will collapse,” Guriev stated.
“It could be months, it could be several years, it could be North Korea on steroids, who knows? But it could also be a situation where the system collapses and somebody who wants to rebuild the economy reaches out to the West,” he added.
The Russian Embassy in London and Russia’s Foreign Ministry weren’t instantly obtainable to remark when contacted by CNBC on Friday.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean chief Kim Jong Un held talks in 2019.
Alexander Zemlianichenko | Afp | Getty Images
Source: www.cnbc.com”