Is Putin getting wobbly?

Rico's friend Kelley forwarded a Forbes article by Melik Kaylan about Putin:

Recent developments in Moscow cumulatively add up to a Kremlinologist’s feast. Seismic shifts are shaking the Russian power pyramid. Yet there’s been precious little public commentary by western experts. Let’s do a brief recap:

Putin announces a draw-down from Syria. Soon after, he also announces that he’s creating a “national guard”. As an article in the Daily Beast itemizes, he moves to decommission fifty-thousand-plus personnel in pre-existing quasi-gendarmeries to create an overarching domestic corps, loyal to him, that the article dubbed a Praetorian Guard, effectively charged with the task of keeping him in power. And one other thing: he fired the ultra-powerful Kremlin insider Viktor Ivanov, formerly in charge of the dissolved corps. Something big is afoot.
Interestingly, Putin’s gambit resembles the famous overnight dismissal of fifteen thousand traffic police in 2004 by Georgia’s then-President Mikheil Saakashvili, an action that promptly ended the country’s decades-old legacy of Soviet-era police corruption. Needless to say, Putin has other ends in mind, corruption being an instrument, rather than a malfunction, of his regime. But the two incidents do share a common purpose: a public lesson. A deeply-entrenched and heavily-armed branch of the state, supposedly untouchable, can be summarily uprooted. We know why Saakashvili did it: to usher in transparency and rule of law. What motivated Putin?
The Daily Beast article, citing anonymous insiders, first argues that Putin’s aim is to protect himself from a Tahrir Square-style uprising; a Russian Spring. After all, Putin thinks the US is always behind such upheavals, inciting them artificially for its dastardly designs; he says so regularly. Ergo, he needs a Praetorian Guard to protect him. But, plausible as it may sound at first glance, this explanation of the massive reshuffle doesn’t quite stand up to scrutiny.
Why fire Ivanov? Why not simply deploy Interior Ministry troops, should the need arise? The Daily Beast touches on another broadly-mooted hypothesis, one closer to the mark, without extrapolating the reasons. Putin wants to “take control over the fearless but politically-problematic Chechen police” still effectively loyal to Kadyrov, the pro-Kremlin chief thug who runs Chechnya, and who kills his own opponents at home and around the world with impunity.
You might ask, what does a National Guard have to do with Chechnya, and what does “politically problematic” mean, and what’s wrong with Kadyrov anyway? He has kept Chechnya quiescent enough for the Kremlin, however brutally. Again, why fire Ivanov? To unwrap the enigma, you have to go back to the public murder of the opposition leader Boris Nemtsov near the Kremlin on 27 February 2015, and the subsequent disappearing act by Vladimir Putin, which touched off a storm of speculation as to his whereabouts. There’s a far more revealing article in Newsweek by a former State Department employee, that almost nails the full truth except for some crucial omissions. The article outlines the following timeline: Kadyrov had Nemtsov killed by Chechen hitmen. Russia’s siloviki, its strongmen in charge of state institutions, did not like it. They had waged a secret struggle against Chechnya’s boss because he didn’t share the spoils of his regional power with them. Their group quickly leaked the facts about Nemtsov’s Chechen murderers as a move against Kadyrov. The siloviki recognized that Nemtsov’s murder was a bloody public act by Kadyrov to demonstrate greater loyalty to Putin than the siloviki. Now Putin’s invention of an entirely new armed corps by merging other ministry troops deprives the siloviki of their armies and, effectively, their power, Ivanov included. With me so far? If not, blame the Kremlin, because that’s how byzantine Russia has become.
Let me lay it out plainly: at the time of Nemtsov’s murder, I was in the Ukraine reporting on the conflict there and talking to various government officials. They watched the unfolding of events in Moscow and knew the score. This is what it looked like from the outside: Nemtsov is killed. Somebody quickly leaks the killers’ Chechen identities. Suddenly, the biggest rival to Putin inside the state, Sergei Ivanov, disappears for two weeks. Then Putin famously disappears for a week, amid rumors of health problems. Finally, Putin re-emerges to meet and greet a foreign leader. According to my Ukrainian sources, the siloviki were outraged that a Chechen should interfere with Russian affairs, even to remove a threat like Nemtsov, a true liberal democrat. Why should a Chechen be allowed to determine the destiny of Russia? If he can get away with assassinating Nemtsov, the day will come when he can assassinate any of them, including the siloviki, including Ivanov.
So a behind-the-scenes Kremlin power struggle ensued, reminiscent of the old Soviet times. That is why they each disappeared into a huddle for a while. Putin survived. According to my sources, the discussion went like this: 

Siloviki and Ivanov to Putin: You can’t allow some low-down Chechen scum to play with Russia’s future by murdering people in sight of the Kremlin. How does that make us look, or you, for that matter? We’re supposed to be Russian nationalists.
Putin to Ivanov et al: What do you want me to do? He keeps the lid on Chechnya for us. Do you think it’s that easy? The Saudis keep threatening to reinflame the region because we support Assad. We can’t mess with it. He has his own army. How do we replace that? They would instantly revolt if we touched their leader
Ivanov to Putin: It can’t stay like that forever. Chechnya is a part of Russia. Today he kills the opposition figure. Tomorrow it could be you or us. We can’t have the tail wagging the dog. We need to retake Chechnya properly. We can create a bigger domestic military force and merge Kadyrov’s Chechen army into it. We give them an ultimatum.
Putin: It won’t work. Anyway, we do not have the maneuvering room now. We’ve got our hands full. The oil prices. Ukraine sanctions. Assad wobbling. Let me think about it. Obviously, the situation can’t last. I agree.
Ivanov: You have a year. If you don’t do anything about it, we will. And remember that your power is dependent upon our cooperation. 

Almost exactly six months later, Putin intervened in Syria. His demarche put the siloviki leaders on the back foot. A successful commander-in-chief is, after all, a popular figure nationally, and that much harder to unseat, not least because he tightens his sway over the military in the process. Now, six months after that, he announces a draw-down. He can’t afford to get mired in Syria. But he’s in a better position to face off against his challengers at home. He implements their plan to create an overarching domestic armed force, but he also fires their leaders, thereby defanging them effectively. The lesson: no one, no state institution, however powerful, is indispensable. All very Stalinist.
Putin still faces massive problems. Chechnya may not knuckle under to a National Guard run by Moscow. Syria and Iran don’t like Putin’s zig-zags over Syria for his own showboating. Ivanov now knows he’s a hunted man and has numerous allies. The economy is tanking. Putin is dancing as fast as he can, but for how long?

Rico says that Putin is growing ever more reminiscent of Vlad the Impaler...