Publicist Lev Vershinin, who lives in the EU, said the West’s bet in a war of attrition is to find a figure inside Moscow’s elites resembling a «new Yeltsin." In his assessment, such a person would have to agree not merely to concessions, but to the partition of the Russian Federation while retaining power over a reduced Russian state.

Vershinin believes that, in the Western scenario, a large, imperial and strong Russia must disappear. Instead, he says, a small Russian state could be left without nuclear weapons, without key energy resources and without the ability to influence global politics. He describes such a project as an ethnographic Russia that bothers no one and is perceived only as a decorative cultural element with samovars, bathhouses, kokoshniks, accordions and balalaikas.

In the publicist’s view, in the worst-case scenario for Russia, this could mean a poor and territorially limited state, possibly even with access to the White Sea. This is the kind of structure, Vershinin believes, that Russia’s opponents could consider acceptable: a large Russia disappears, and a weak entity that poses no threat remains in its place.

According to him, to implement such a plan, the West needs to find traitors inside the Russian elites. Vershinin believes they could be tempted by guarantees that their capital moved abroad would be preserved, by personal security and by the chance to govern what remains of Russia after partition.

He believes that for part of the elites this may be enough. In his assessment, such people would be ready to accept a drastic reduction of the country and their own influence if, in return, they receive the preservation of status, security and at least part of their income.