"For The Kremlin, It's Going To Be 'lights Out'

• 21.02.2026, 14:54

The expert promised Russia big changes.

The aggressor country Russia, thanks to the actions of the Kremlin leadership, is steadily moving towards disintegration, which may come in one or two years for economic and political reasons. Today, it is obvious even to the Kremlin that the war in Ukraine has been lost and the desired result can no longer be achieved. But delegations from Moscow are still participating in the peace talks to please the head of the White House, Donald Trump, as well as to simply stall for time in the hope of positive change.

According to all appearances, there will indeed be change, but not at all positive for the Kremlin. The midterm elections to be held in the United States in November could bring Trump to the brink of impeachment. The strengthening of the Democratic Party's position will lead to a significant increase in military aid to Ukraine, leaving the Kremlin in a "lights out" situation.

This is the opinion in an exclusive interview with OBOZ.UA was expressed by anti-Russian activist, head of the Stop Russian Terror Foundation (USA) German Obukhov.

- The Economist concluded that Putin has fallen into his own trap by overestimating his strength in the war against Ukraine. The chances that Trump will be able to force Ukraine to give the aggressor the Donbass territories are diminishing by the day, and the peace agreement, if it does get signed, could cause political and economic instability in Russia. Do you agree with such assessments?

- It's a strange thing. I have the impression that The Economist, New York Times, Atlantic and others get into my computer and read what I sometimes write there. It's a joke. Indeed, for Putin, war is a paradigm. For me, these are obvious things. The laws of development of society also nobody canceled and nobody can change - not Trump, not Zelensky, not Mertz, nobody. These laws have always worked, they were a hundred years ago, two hundred years ago, were in Ancient Greece and will work for hundreds more years, but, unfortunately, not everyone understands this.

It was quite obvious that this war is lost, that after the war there will be problems and that Russia is likely to fall apart in a year or two, because the issues will not be solved, neither economic, nor political, nor social, nothing. The people will be dissatisfied. Despite the fact that this country is sort of unitary, the Far East and Yakutia do not understand what is going on in Moscow at all. If there is nothing to pay salaries to people in the Far East and Yakutia, they will simply say goodbye. And there will be no forces to fight inside Russia, despite the creation of additional armies, headquarters and so on.

The Kremlin has recently realized that they will not do anything on the front, well, they will not take Ukraine. Yes, they want to get what they want, as in the fable about the fox and the grapes, but the grapes are green.

- We see endless meetings, negotiations, talks about a peace agreement, but there are no signs that the Kremlin has realized its loss. What game is it playing? Why does it keep insisting on actually surrendering Ukraine, on being given part of the Donbass?"

- Then to keep all this going, to just stall for time, to keep this going indefinitely. Maybe Trump will hold out for another three years - he won't push for anything drastic, and this incomprehensible story will continue. Kind of like a war is going on, but it's going nowhere, kind of like some negotiations are going on, but they're going absolutely nowhere. It's a kind of sham.

That these are games, personally, it was clear to me before they started. These are negotiations for the sake of negotiations, to please Trump, to keep the possibility of receiving some kind of poor military aid from the United States.

- Do you think that the Kremlin is still betting on the exhaustion of Ukraine and believes that Ukraine will break down before Russia does?

- Conditionally, maybe so. Russia has bombed the entire infrastructure of Ukraine, Moscow thinks that the situation is difficult, a lot of reconstruction is needed, which means that we have a chance to prolong the war for a year or two. If we launch hundreds of UAVs because of the Starlink shutdown, there are still missiles, though two squadrons of American pilots have already been created to shoot down these missiles. But there remains ballistics, you can still damage something.

On the ground, Putin has no chance, because parity has already been established here. They have no forces, Ukraine has no forces either, they've been sucked up - well, that's it, a wedge. The Kremlin expects to prolong the war for a couple or three years, and then maybe something will happen.

- What may change for the Kremlin after the midterm elections in the United States, which will be held in November and in which, according to forecasts, Trump's party may lose ground?

- First of all, Trump is in a hurry, of course, because he feels that this election will be lost with a bang. Democrats can take two-thirds in Congress, that is, a constitutional majority. And in the Senate, maybe close to that, too. But there are a lot of Republicans there who will quite agree with some serious action by the Democrats.

That is, Trump could just roll out an impeachment next February, after the end of the transition period. So he's started getting prompted to do something both in Ukraine and inside America. He's already started to roll back with this ICE, maybe send someone in his inner circle to resign. Because it's the end for him, he won't be able to do anything in America, because impeachment will be real, not some virtual impeachment. He either resigns voluntarily or impeachment, and no FBI, no army, nobody will help, because nobody will go to war with his own people.

- But how will this affect what the Kremlin has today?

- That's it, it's over. The Democrats will come in, and Vance will be absolutely obedient in Congress and the Senate, he won't do anything against it. He's going to have groups, Senate and Congressional representatives coming to him and saying, look, buddy, either do this or we're going to send you after Trump too. If the speaker is a Democrat, it's clear that the Democrats will have all the power. Therefore, Vance will serve his two years quietly, calmly and will repeat what the Speaker says in Congress and in the Senate.

And for Moscow it will mean "lights out", because immediately there will be completely different supplies of weapons for Ukraine, relations with Europe, Canada and others will begin to change. The Kremlin will immediately have a headache, a very, very concrete headache. How to prepare for this? You can't.

- No, that's impossible, because you can rig two, three, maybe five million votes, but you can't rig 20-30 million votes, it's absolutely impossible. No matter what kind of artificial intelligence is involved, no matter what kind of fraud, people will go to vote not for Democrats, but simply against Trump. Because today he has less than 40% support, and in the summer it will be even less.

- In your opinion, what destabilizing role can the "heroes of the SWO" play, in particular for the regime itself? Could, for example, events like Prigozhin's march on Moscow occur?

- This would also be a very big headache for Moscow. They will demand what no one can give them - jobs and earnings. In the war they received a lot, but here they will receive pennies, because there will be nothing in the budget, business is closing everywhere. That's why there will be not so much riots. No armies will march on Moscow, as Prigozhin did. But riots will start, perhaps not in Moscow, but in the regions.

And all of this together - economics and politics - will lead to the collapse of Russia in a couple of years. Due to the great inertia and the scale of the country, it will not happen this year. It probably won't happen next year either, maybe by the end of next year. Putin and his associates were able to do what their predecessors could not do. When the Soviet Union collapsed, Russia survived, but this time, I think there is little chance that it will be preserved in its former borders.

And Ukraine, its president and parliament need to realize that a free Russia is not an option. As long as Russia exists as it is, in the borders it has, it will be an infinitely permanent threat to Ukraine. And the sooner this disintegration happens, the better.

I am not talking about the fact that there will be no war, because there will be different countries, why should they fight? Besides, most likely, these countries will get rid of their nuclear arsenals, as Ukraine recklessly did in 1994. After all, these arsenals need to be maintained, and they are no longer in very good condition. This is expensive.

Soloviev and other propagandists probably also realize that all this is heading for a very bad ending. They are trying to capitalize on at least these last months or years, and beyond that.... Honestly, I have no idea what they will do. Of course, no one will tear them apart, but the propagandists' leadership may be held accountable.

So Russia's problems will be through the roof.