On Monday, October 30, an American political technologist and ex-head of Donald Trump's campaign headquarters in 2016, Paul Manafort came with his lawyer to the Washington office of the FBI to surrender at the request of the federal authorities. As you know, Manafort is a figurant of the investigation about the alleged interference of Russia in last year's US elections. About what consequences this can have for Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, the "Apostrophe" was told by a Russian blogger and financier Slava Rabinovich.

Manafort is one of the key figures in Trumpgate / Kremlingate. I hope he speaks. On the basis of what he says, other judges will be summoned to a grand jury and hearings of the Congress. These figurants must give an oath to tell the truth, only the truth and nothing but the truth. The trickle-down of Trump's ties with Moscow will lead to processes on the basis of which the impeachment risk will increase exponentially.

For Russia, the risks are most likely in timing with the destruction of Putin's regime. Russia has nowhere to fall in its reputation. Still, probably three years ago it was quite obvious that civilized countries and their political leadership had decided to end up with Putin's regime, but they did not know how to do it. Moreover, the Putin regime has a nuclear arsenal.

If you look at the history of imposing sanctions against Putin's regime, they were rather slow. I think that the speed and depth of these sanctions will also increase exponentially. Until there are any events, including different scenarios: a palace revolution, Putin's removal from power, some street revolutions, some unexpected twists during the so-called presidential elections. In any case, the pressure on Putin's regime will be increased realistically in a geometric progression.

Anything that Manafort will say or what other different characters will say in connection with this will fall into the ring of accusations against the Putin regime, which carried out an attack against the most important foundation of American democracy - against the institution of elections. In English there is the expression "to corrupt the election process". A cash translation into Russian suggests some kind of corruption in this process. In fact, the verb "to corrupt" means much more than just "corrupt", in fact it means "making irreparable mistakes" that destroy the institution of elections. Accordingly, this is a very serious charge.

And I think that Putin's regime will not be able to step through this in the medium term.

In international politics and jurisprudence, cases when personal sanctions are imposed against specific heads of state are extremely rare. And although it is quite clear what crimes Putin committed, especially during the last three and a half years, even under these circumstances, personal sanctions against him were not introduced. I think Putin was on the home stretch to earn personal sanctions against him.