What will happen in the Russian Federation after Putin leaves power, what could split the ranks of the West and what strategy Ukraine should choose - DW asked Francis Fukuyama, an American philosopher and political scientist of Japanese origin, about this. We publish excerpts from the interview.

Putin is lying when he says: “We haven’t really started anything yet”.

DW: Russia's war against Ukraine is in its fifth month. Vladimir Putin recently stated that " Have you heard this quote and what do you think of it

I think he is lying, as he is lying about many other things.. Western military analysts who study the state of the Russian armed forces note that now the Russian army is experiencing a very acute shortage of personnel. They lost, probably, up to a third of the entire personnel, which was originally collected and sent to defeat Ukraine.. Estimates of Russian casualties are only rough, but possibly around 20,000 killed and possibly around 60,000 wounded.. Plus, prisoners, and so on.

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You know, even for such a big country as Russia, this is by no means a small military operation.. And, from a military point of view - all this is practically a disaster.. Considering that the Russian army has made only very little progress in the two months since they started to concentrate military operations in the Donbass, and I believe they do not have many reserves, so in my opinion, Putin is bluffing when.

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It is necessary, first of all, to return Kherson and the ports on the Sea of \u200b\u200bAzov. Real progress is possible by the end of summer.

DW: What advice would you give to Ukraine today What could be her future strategy?

— I think that the most realistic strategy at the moment is to focus on the south of the country, reopen access to the Black Sea for Ukraine, returning Kherson and ports on the Sea of \u200b\u200bAzov. This is more important than Donbass. I think that the return of Donbass will be quite difficult to implement in the next few months.. But by the end of the summer we may see real progress in the south. ... If, say, by September or October they really liberate this area, then this will lay the groundwork for the start of serious ceasefire negotiations.

DW: The Russian calculation in attacking Ukraine obviously included a belief in the weakness of the West and that the West would not be united to help Ukraine survive. What threatens the unity of the West as we see it today? Can it fall apart after Donald Trump is re-elected

- There are two big dangers. First test awaits European support for Ukraine next winter. Russia has actually cut off natural gas supplies. And I think that with the onset of cold weather, Europe will have a real problem in finding a replacement for Russian gas.. The second danger is the one you mentioned. The difficulty lies in the fact that support for Ukraine from the Republicans in the United States is gradually weakening. Trump is on the other side - he is pro-Russian, not pro-Ukrainian.

Obviously, if he returns to the presidency in 2024, this can solve all the problems of Russia today, because Trump intends to withdraw the US from NATO. Thus, the Kremlin will achieve its main goals simply by changing the course of American policy.. That's why I think it's critical that Ukraine make some progress and seize the initiative on the battlefield during the summer.. …If the opinion prevails that the situation has reached a dead end that will continue forever, then I think there will be cracks in the unity of the West, and there will be more calls for Ukraine to give up territory in order to stop the war.

Russia today resembles Nazi Germany.

DW: As a political philosopher, how do you define the current political regime in Russia for yourself and what do you think about its longevity

Russia today more than anything else reminds me of Nazi Germany. Its only ideology is extreme nationalism, albeit in a less developed form than the Nazis had.. In addition, this regime is very weakly institutionalized and really revolves around one person - Vladimir Putin, who controls all the main levers of power..

If we compare Russia with China, they turn out to be very different.. China has a huge communist party with 90 million members. She has a strong internal discipline.. There are many rules regarding who gets promoted and how the entire government system is run.. In the case of Russia, you do not have such an institutionalization of the state regime. Everything really revolves around the president and his specific decisions. And so when he leaves it's not clear what will happen.

I imagine it in such a way that there will be a big struggle for power between all the power ministries and those internal forces that are the basis of his power. So I don't think it's stable mode. I do not see a clear ideology in this political regime, which it would be able to project outside. I believe that people who support the Putin regime are simply those who, for a variety of reasons, do not like the West.. They can be left, like, say, the leadership of Venezuela, or right, in the case of Hungary.. But that's all. The current Russian regime does not have any consistent ideology.

Francis Fukuyama is a Japanese American philosopher, political scientist, political economist, and writer.; Senior Fellow at the Center for Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law at Stanford University. Fukuyama was one of those who openly warned about the risk of Russia starting a war against Ukraine.