Not likely. The core of the Russian multinational state is its Russian majority.
Russia doesn’t face the danger of collapse the same way the Soviet Union did.
But it does face hard times ahead.
I think Vlady going have trouble oil prices are going down so he can’t do anything about it so his buddies may throw him back in a car one of these days KGB style
That's possible I guess, but it sounds way too positive about the USSR and too negative about today's Russia. I'd want to see the data or a chart or something.
Russia without an empire is just another poor eastern European country. The recent crash in oil prices, lack of competitive industries, aging population with a short life expectancy, etc., all point to Russia remaining the neighborhood bully in the poor part of town. Putin already runs Russia like a biker gang, and I don’t see any improvements on the horizon.
I visited Russia, in the bad old days of the USSR. The Russians I interacted with really admired, and wanted friendship with us “Amerikinskys”. We really squandered a wonderful opportunity, in the 90’s (pre Putin).
Russia isn’t going away.
I said a long time ago (after the collapse of the USSR) that the Russians would be “back in black” and they are.
Undoubtedly, fundamentalist Muslim savages will step in to fill any power vacuum.
Like the US is doing so great. How many more cromnibus bills will ‘our saviours’ pass? Illegal aliens? And that little talked about rider in the cromnibus that puts the taxpayer on the hook for derivatives? The list goes on thanks to ‘the lesser of two evils’.
Paul Goble was one of the State Department’s best Soviet experts back before the USSR’s fall. He has kept in touch with the situation and has done much work regarding the former Soviet SSRs such as Estonia, Lithuania, Lativa.
This is a good analysis piece of 4 current Russian writers and worth carefully reading and considering. Paul has more often been correct in his analysis of the USSR/Russia, than not.