- May 5, 2026
- 7:24 pm
- World News
The publication in May 2026 of details from a closed report by one of the European intelligence agencies became not just a loud political story. It revealed what had long been felt from the behavior of the Russian authorities: in the upper echelons of the Kremlin, fear has ceased to be a backdrop and has turned into a mechanism of governance.
It’s not just about the suspicion of the first circle of power. Within the Russian system, if the published data is to be believed, there is a growing expectation of conspiracy, leaks, betrayal, and even physical elimination. What could previously be dismissed as political conspiracy theories now appears to be a real factor influencing Moscow’s decisions.
For the Israeli audience, this topic is important not as an internal Russian intrigue. Russia remains a player closely connected with Iran, the Syrian direction, arms supplies, pressure on Ukraine, and the overall security architecture around Israel. Therefore, the question of how stable the Kremlin’s vertical is has long gone beyond the confines of Moscow offices.
The war against Ukraine has trapped the Russian elites
Russian propaganda continues to show the domestic audience a picture of monolithic stability. In this picture, the authorities supposedly control the situation, the elites are united, the army is moving towards victory, and sanctions only strengthen the country.
But behind the facade, everything looks different.
The protracted aggression against Ukraine has become an institutional trap for the Russian elite. Victory, as promised for years, remains unattainable. Stopping the war without a political loss of face is also difficult. And sanctions, technological isolation, and the toxicity of Russian jurisdiction destroy the usual way of life for those who have earned within the system for decades but preferred to spend in the West.
This is where the main conflict begins.
Some elite groups want to preserve the regime but remove the most dangerous elements of its current trajectory. Others, on the contrary, consider any compromise a defeat and are ready to move towards an even harsher military dictatorship. Between them are officials, security forces, business clans, governors, media managers, and regional players, each of whom understands: in a moment of great crisis, the losers may lose not their position, but their freedom, assets, and physical safety.
The Iranian factor makes the situation even more dangerous
A separate layer of this story is Moscow’s dependence on unstable partners. Primarily on Iran.
For Russia, the Iranian direction is important not ideologically, but practically: drones, components, logistics, military cooperation, bypass routes, Caspian supply chains. But Iran itself is in a state of constant internal and external tension. For Israel, this is a particularly significant moment because any upheavals in the Russian-Iranian link can affect the Middle East, Syria, arms supplies, and the overall dynamics of the war against Ukraine.
In other words, Russian instability does not remain Russian. It quickly becomes a regional problem.
Against this backdrop, even Moscow’s allies are starting to behave more cautiously. Alexander Lukashenko, possessing a rare instinct for the weakness of a senior partner, may be preparing to distance himself from the Kremlin in the event of a major internal conflict. For Minsk, it is important not to perish together with Moscow if the Russian vertical begins to crack not at the edges, but at the very center.
Two scenarios of transition: pragmatists versus security forces
If a real transition of power begins in Russia, it is unlikely to resemble a street revolution. For autocracies of this type, a top-level conspiracy is more characteristic, where decisions are made not by the squares, but by offices, security, special services, the governor’s corps, media, and large economic groups.
The first scenario can be called a ‘palace consensus.’ It could be promoted by technocrats, part of the large quasi-state business, and officials who are more interested in preserving assets, manageability, and the possibility of bargaining with the outside world than in continuing the war to complete exhaustion.
In such logic, the removal of the first person could be formalized through ‘health reasons’ or another plausible pretext. Then — an attempt to freeze the war against Ukraine, sell it to society as a forced salvation of the state, and begin cautious bargaining with the West.
The formal face of such a variant could be Mikhail Mishustin, since it is the prime minister in the Russian constitutional structure who receives a special role when the president is unable to perform duties. His image is convenient for an apparatus transition: not an ideologue, not a television hawk, not a front-line symbol, but an administrator associated with the digital system, tax discipline, and managerial efficiency.
But Mishustin alone is not enough for such a scenario.
Sergei Sobyanin controls a huge financial and administrative resource of Moscow. Sergei Chemezov, through ‘Rostec,’ is connected with the military-industrial machine, which suffers from a technological embargo and at the same time remains vital for the war. Sergei Kiriyenko may be needed as an operator for reconfiguring internal politics, governors, party decoration, and a new propaganda narrative.
In the middle of this construction, the media factor also appears. Without television, large internet platforms, and a controlled information field, a coup in Russia does not become a political reality. Therefore, figures like Yuri Kovalchuk, associated with the ‘Russia’ bank and large media assets, are as important as generals. In the Russian system, an event finally occurs when it is allowed to be shown correctly.
NANews — Israel News | Nikk.Agency views such processes not as a distant Kremlin drama, but as part of a broader picture: the war against Ukraine, Russian-Iranian rapprochement, and a possible crisis in Moscow directly affect Israel’s security, Ukrainian-Israeli relations, and the balance of power around the Middle East.
The power scenario may turn out to be harsher
The second scenario is the seizure of initiative by a radical power bloc.
In this variant, structures associated with the Security Council, the FSB, and the most rigid part of the military nomenclature come to the forefront. For them, compromise is dangerous because it can open the way to investigations, redistribution of powers, surrender of the guilty, and dismantling of individual influence groups.
Such a bloc may attempt not to soften the regime, but on the contrary — to isolate the first person, introduce a more rigid military order, and explain to society that the previous system was not decisive enough.
Here, balancing figures are important. Alexei Dyumin, Secretary of the State Council, possesses a rare set of characteristics: former personal bodyguard, FSO general, participant in the Crimean direction, former governor of the Tula region. For some, he is a security officer, for others — a manager, for others — a possible compromise stabilizer.
It is such figures that, in a moment of crisis, can decide where the system will swing.
The position of Andrei Belousov, head of the Russian Ministry of Defense, looks completely different. His role as a civilian economist and auditor of military budgets makes him useful for controlling expenses, but not necessarily protected in the event of a power coup. He has no personal army, his own guard, or an independent apparatus base. If generals and security forces start looking for the guilty, a cabinet manager may become a convenient target.
Regional purges show the center’s fear
The paranoia of the upper echelons does not remain only in Moscow. It is already manifesting in regional politics, where the center tries to preemptively remove figures capable of playing an independent game.
A telling example is the case of Sergei Melikov, head of Dagestan, whose resignation in May 2026 was explained by the consequences of floods. But the political meaning, according to the original material, may be deeper. Melikov is a colonel-general, former first deputy of Viktor Zolotov in the National Guard, a person with weight among the Caucasian security forces. Moreover, he was associated with the development of large resources in the occupied territories of Ukraine, including the Zaporizhzhia region.
If such a figure becomes too independent, the center begins to see not a manager in him, but a potential node of a future rebellion.
A similar logic is seen in relation to the Astrakhan region. The region is strategically important due to ports, Caspian routes, shadow logistics, and possible chains associated with the Iranian direction. The purge of Igor Babushkin’s entourage and the strengthening of the central FSB apparatus’s control over transport corridors look like an attempt to remove competing power groups from money, weapons, and logistics.
In a normal system, such processes would be called fighting corruption or restoring order. In a system expecting an internal blow, they look more like preventive self-defense.
The Kremlin cuts knots where resources are concentrated. But each such blow simultaneously increases the fear of other groups. If today one regional player is removed, tomorrow any neighboring clan may decide that waiting for their turn is more dangerous than acting first.
The Caucasian factor and Kadyrov’s role
The Caucasian factor stands separately.
Ramzan Kadyrov possesses his own power resource, but his stability depends on personal guarantees from the center. Without these guarantees, Chechen autonomy can quickly become the object of an attack by federal security forces, who have long perceived it as a separate problem within the Russian structure.
In this link, Vladislav Surkov is also important. His experience in understanding the system’s weak points, informal negotiations, and political combinations can make him a mediator in a moment of crisis. Theoretically, Kadyrov’s power resource can be used as an element of protection for one of the apparatus coalitions — for example, against the FSB. But the price of such an alliance will be high: guarantees of autonomy, the safety of the inner circle, and the preservation of special status.
For Russia, this means another risk. The internal transition of power can quickly cease to be only a Moscow process and affect the Caucasus, Caspian logistics, military routes, and regional power balances.
The final conclusion here is harsh: the Russian system has reached a point where fear has become stronger than ideology. The elites fear defeat, sanctions, isolation, purges, betrayal, and future trials. The center fears conspiracy. The regions fear preventive strikes. The security forces fear being made guilty. Technocrats fear they won’t have time to save assets and manageability.
It is from such fear that major apparatus shifts most often arise.
The conspiracy that the Kremlin fears may not begin as a carefully prepared revolution, but as a chain reaction after another purge. When every participant in the system understands that tomorrow they may be declared a traitor, the question is no longer who will be the first to want to act. The question is who will first decide that waiting has become more dangerous than taking risks.