Next, The Invisible Begins

• Leonid Nevzlin
• 11.05.2026, 11:16

The main ritual of the regime is going away.

The May 9, 2026 parade lasted fortyĸ five minutes. Last year it was an hour and nine, the year before that fifty. Obviously: the main ritual of the regime is going away.

For the first time, soldiers of the Korean People's Army, the same ones who fought against Ukraine in the Kursk region, marched through Red Square. On the podium next to Putin sat veterans and a small number of foreign guests.

Defense Minister Belousov took the parade in a civilian suit. General Mordvichev commanded the parade for the first time. The same one who in 2022 commanded the grouping of the Russian army that stormed Mariupol. A war criminal who should be in the dock.

At the center of all this ĸomposition stood a seventy-three-year-old man, ruling the country for twenty-six years, and made a speech, the content of which should apparently justify all his crimes.

This is all that was visible. Next, the invisible begins. Over the years, so much has been written about Putin's health that it would be enough for a separate library. But everything that is written about Putin's health reflects not so much reality as wishful thinking. It reflects the demand for the regime to end biologically, since it does not end politically.

In a system in which there is no continuity, no resignation mechanism, no internal opposition, and not even publicly bargaining groups of influence, biology is the only variable. When the entire politics of a country is compressed into a single organism, the observation of that organism becomes the only possible political science.

The parade that turns is the visualization of the established structure. A state in which the main ritual is constricted around one aging man, shrinking with his possibilities. The regime is organized in such a way that the question of its future has become a question of one old man's health. Not about elections, not about the political course, not about the race of the elites. About the ĸardiogram, about the appearance of decrepit arms. These are the only places where change is still possible in the country. For this body, like any other, has a time limit. And this can be known for sure.

Leonid Nevzlin, Telegram