Living in Russia, I have mixed feelings about this slow controlled collapse TBF.

For Russia itself, maybe things being over after a couple of months (or years) of civil war starting in 1999 would be better.

But for everybody else, of course, there are bigger risks associated with that. Not really something nuclear even, just economically less pleasant.

To be fair, it's not exactly an unexpected scenario.

Who says they have not prepared for that?

Very unlikely scenario. Expected collapse on the other hand...

It was made into a film called Children of Men.

You can be prepared for all kinds of things you aren't expecting. For example you could get occupational disablement insurance while not expecting to ever use it.

Maybe they're preparing for it so it won't be unexpected

The anticipatory poop challenge part deux.

We have a plan to invade literally every country and for if that country invades us that is updated regularly. I always found that kind of funny but it isn't shocking.

It's like saying the police is preparing for thieves robbing the bank or the fire department preparing for a wildfire. It's part of their job and it would be stranger not to have a contingency plan.

I suppose it's unexpected because Putin would rather bomb his own citizens than allow a change of status quo.

"Some people in UK government maybe consider thinking about doing something because something happened". Much better title.

I thought it was; maybe the link you got was to the front page, or something? The article was mostly about how Prigozhin's attempted coup (or whatever it was) surprised Western leaders, and a bunch of speculation about how the West is scrambling to prepare contingemcy plans. So the one I read seemed to match.

However, I think it was a fluff article, with little substance. Prigozhin has been agitating for weeks, and I seriously doubt MI6 (or the CIA) was surprised by his actions. Or that nobody has a contingency plan for chaos in Russia. Putin's a dictator, and when dictators die, it's rarely a peaceful transition of power.

It's Pravda, literally the propaganda arm of the Ukrainian Government.

Even if there's no coup/revolution/he doesn't get assassinated/etc.

He's 70, and very possibly not in the best health. Statistically it wouldn't be very surprising if he dropped dead of natural causes at any moment. Technically he's already a small anomaly of a Russian male just because he has lived as long as he has since their average life expectancy is currently something like 65 (which is admittedly skewed very young by a whole lot of stuff like drinking, drug use, suicide, and being shipped off to Ukraine) And even if he beats all odds and lives another 30 years it still shouldn't be unexpected for him to just decide to step down and retire at some point. Shit, if I had a fraction of the money and assets he has, I'd have called it quits a long time ago and disappeared from the public view.

And when he goes, no matter how he goes, there's going to be a power vacuum that needs to be filled and a whole lot of assholes jockeying for position. I won't pretend to know how that will go, maybe there will be all-out civil war, maybe just a handful of the right people will fall out of windows or drink polonium tea or just get disappeared, maybe there will be a major economic collapse and a rise in crime rates, maybe everything will just be hunky-dory and it really was just Putin holding everything back and Russia will enter a new age of enlightenment (it will probably not be that last one)

Looks old now. He will probably die anyway.