Moscow paper puts up and takes down article saying disintegration of Russia is ‘inevitable’

There are some things no one in Russia must say or even think. Perhaps the most important of these is the idea that the Russian Federation will disintegrate just as the Soviet Union and all other empires have. But the Kremlin hasn’t managed to keep the idea out of the newspapers or to eliminate it by taking it off line when it does appear. Today, Ukraine’s Gordon news agency reported that “Moskovsky komsomolets [a Moscow-based daily newspaper with a print circulation approaching one million, covering general news - Ed.] had taken down from its site an article about the inevitable disintegration of Russia.” At 03:24, the Moscow paper put up a story declaring that “a former Putin advisor considers that the disintegration of Russia is inevitable.” And that is an entirely “natural process” as far as “multi-national empires” are concerned. The article was on the newspaper’s website for eight hours and attracted more than 207,000 page-views. But then it was taken down. By taking this action, of course, the Moscow paper and its Kremlin bosses have only called more attention to the article than it might have otherwise received; and it has certainly not eliminated the article from the Internet because on the web almost nothing ever goes away completely. Below is the text of the article which remains online at irnet.ru:

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