What Would Happen if Someone Killed Putin ?

[JI7]

What would happen if an American were to go to Russia and Kill Putin in Russia and they got away with it in enough time to get back to the US ?

I don't mean CIA or anyone working officially as part of the state.

But just a private individual ?

Are there laws where you would most likely be sent there or in some way have to be held accountable for it ?

Since he attacked our elections and continues to do so in additional to all the other shit he has done such as the poisonings in the UK could it be considered self defense ?

[DetlefK]

1. Wow.

1. It would trigger an international crisis and cause a new Cold War, with actual danger of kicking off WWIII at any moment.

2. It wouldn't matter if it's a private citizen who kills Putin. It would be (at least to some degree of probability) be regarded anyways as a state-sanctioned assassination.

3. It wouldn't matter whether the US is innocent: They would get blamed for it anyways, with massive international backlash against the US. You think the current anti-american hysteria is bad? You ain't seen nothing yet. The online-extremism would spill over into real-life terrorism all over the world. The dam would be broken and ordinary citizens would come to regard political assassination as a legitimate form of protest. Assassination would become the new normal.

4. There would be an international man-hunt for the assassin, with everyone assisting. Even the US would assist, to disperse any rumor that they are somehow involved. AFAIK the US has no extradition-treaty with Russia, but they would extradite him anyways. Fuck laws. Diplomacy would be more important.

5. Once the captured assassin is in Russia, he is in for a world of pain and torture until the FSB has broken his mind and extracted every single bit of information, down to the most trivial and worthless memories. And then they will dig deeper. And again. And again. And again. And again. Just to be sure.

6. The assassin will be forced to sign a confession, real or padded with falsehoods, depending on how much the Kremlin wants to exploit this.

7. No matter whether the assassin gets sentenced to death or to prison, he will be disappeared and tortured more.

8. It would not count as self-defense. Russia meddling with the 2016 election was an action state-vs-state. An individual citizen has no personal stake in this. This is a matter between countries.

[JI7]

14. ok, i get most of your points, but WWIII ? i can't see that being possible at all

since they aren't a threat on that level. they know they will be defeated.

[ansible]

2. It would turn Putin into a martyr and be the worst possible outcome

Right now his popularity is already dropping considerably and has already dropped to pre-Crimea levels, a new generation of young russians are already becoming politically aware and aren't going to buy into his propaganda anymore where he would keep bringing up how bad the 1990s were for Russia.

[jodymarie aimee]

3. are you nuts!!!

folks get jailed for being musicians there...poisoned for speaking out...who would even GO there? private individual would not survive....

[former9thward]

9. Many, many Americans go to Russia.

About 200,000 a year. They all survive. The OP is ridiculous but people visit Russia without any issues. I have been there twice and had a great time.

[jodymarie aimee]

10. I meant who would go

to do the deed...

[former9thward]

11. I nominate the OP

They seem to have thought it out

[jodymarie aimee]

12. good one!!

give him directions to your favorite restaurants and bars...

[Fuzzpope]

4. Come home to a hero's return

Have a snack and take a long nap?

[muriel_volestrangler]

5. (a) "and they got away with it" puts this more into the sci-fi realm than reality

He's a head of state with major security. The chances of anyone killing him are low; doing it in a way that they're not immediately arrested (or shot while escaping) are lower still. Being able to get out of the country - practically nil, since after something like that, all normal routes would be shut down, and you'd have to be a local expert to get to a border and make it out.

(b) Any major country would extradite someone if there was sufficient evidence. No, "he attacked our elections and authorised poisonings" is not legal grounds for "self defence". You'd have to be in a state of war with a country to try and pull that off for an assassination of the head of state.

[Sancho]

6. More likely it would be someone from the Ukraine...

or some Russian coup.

The Russians only affected the US elections because of cooperation from the repubs. Otherwise, their efforts would be worthless. We have traitors to deal with in the US.

[Buckeyeblue]

7. The biggest problem will killing a head of state like Putin is the unknown

How bad would it destabilize Russia? What would the power grab look like? And how could get access to the nukes while all this was going on?

The old Soviet Union was more organized. Now, they are a thinly veiled facsiest dictatorship held together by Putin's will. It would sort of be like what would have happened if Hitler had been killed...

[ecstatic]

15. Wow. Good point about the nukes! Nt

[TheCowsCameHome]

8. Trump's lips would stop moving.

[dalton99a]

13. +1