>>512229675 (OP)
the Russian state has imploded twice in a century, its political culture was really only ever held together by a chain of increasingly absolutist monarchs and even then that system was such a rickety pile of dogshit it eventually collapsed under its own inertia too
>there is no clear successor to Putin
>Putin is already 72 years old
>Putin is the only person in Russia with any sort of political legitimacy in the eyes the average Russian
>Putin has spent decades subverting or driving out any meaningful political rivals
>the oligarchs have largely been brought to heel over the last decade and most Russians are so deeply depoliticized that there is no real potential political civil society to reform the government after Putin
>the quagmire in Ukraine is pulling the Russian state towards investing more and more and giving more and more power to siloed off and directly competing military and intelligence services that will 100% fight it out when Putin dies
>severe demographic decline of the Russian population
its a pretty classic personalist unitary government mistake, the very structure of how power is cultivated and maintained makes any move towards planning the succession of power a massive risk so nothing is done until it is too late
