Against the background of the tightening totalitarian situation in Russia, there is a dsicussion about how Putin has "consolidated his position of absolute power" in the past 20 years and is therefore untouchable. To a certain degree, that is certainly true. Nobody in Putin's inner circle is likely to turn against him.
However, the people who are left in the upper levels of Russian leadership are either people who are in it for their own gain, or yes-men who actually believe the official Russian propaganda. Neither of those two kinds of people are useful when you want to run a country.
Unless, of course, you want to run the country into the ground. Then both those kinds of people are extremely efficient as leaders.
When this is over, and it looks as if that is going to happen sooner rather than later, Russia is not likely to return as a player in the international arena. Not politically, not economically, not socially, not in sports, not in any relevant manner whatsoever. Russia stands alone, and those who fall alone fall hard.
