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Why betting on Putin’s departure is a losing game

To avoid years of warfare in Ukraine, the West needs to deal with Russia as it is now, not as it should be

By Anna Matveeva
Why betting on Putin’s departure is a losing game
Vladimir Putin launched the invasion of Ukraine to secure control over the country - and over Russia | (c) Nikolay Vinokurov / Alamy Stock Photo. All rights reserved
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All eyes are on the end of the Putin era, it seems.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyi issued a decree in September declaring negotiations with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to be “impossible”. This could imply a Ukrainian strategy of no negotiations at all (which is unlikely) or an expectation that the end of the ‘Putin era’ is in sight.

Likewise, many among the Russian intellectual elite and Western political community are hedging their bets that change is coming, and that a new leadership in Russia would be a more pliant partner.

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