Generally, mundane astrologers understand and accept that there is a strong historical connection between Russia and the Saturn-Neptune cycle. In modern history, we can point to their conjunction in 1846 and the circumstances that led Russia to attack the Ottoman Empire in 1853 creating an international military action against them called the Crimean War. Russia suffered a humiliating defeat by 1856 that seriously upset both the domestic political landscape regarding ethnic Ukrainians, Russian Jews, and the peasantry, and foreign relationships with Europe with the rising tide of nationalism. The 1881 assassination of Tsar Alexander II, who had been a liberal reformer, occurred as Saturn was in the Balsamic Phase with Neptune just prior to the 1882 conjunction. It brought hyper-nationalist and conservative Alexander III to power, who targeted Ukrainians, Jews and ethnic Germans in the Empire. In 1917, the conjunction coincided with the Russian Revolution, and specifically, the Bolshevik take-over of the government. In 1952-53, the conjunction coincided with the death of Stalin, and then in 1989 with the collapse of the Soviet Union. These remarkable historical events all happened under Saturn-Neptune conjunctions. The current cycle once again has Saturn in the Balsamic Phase with Neptune, both planets in Pisces as they approach their next conjunction at 0 Aries.

Given the history, it is no surprise that Russia is currently struggling, fighting an inhumane, criminal war against Ukraine and suffering serious diplomatic and economic isolation from the rest of the world as a result. Based on the astro-history, I think it’s more than possible that the Putin regime will come to an end around the time of the next Saturn-Neptune conjunction in 2026. Whether Russia will go through another constitutional crisis and systemic change, is harder to predict, but Putin’s illiberal, authoritarian system has Saturn in Taurus and will experience a Saturn return in 2030. I suspect we will know as soon as Saturn makes its ingress into Taurus whether the system will survive or be abandoned. However, post-Soviet Russia, founded December 25, 1991, 07:25pm, Moscow, has Saturn at 5 Aquarius, and the next Saturn-Neptune conjunction in February 2026 has Pluto at 4+ Aquarius, so we can expect a serious crisis related to their government structures and institutions of authority beginning around that time. Time is running out for Putin as Pluto is once again direct at 29 Capricorn and, once it re-enters Aquarius, it will stay there for the duration. As transiting Pluto gets closer to 5 Aquarius and Saturn gets closer to Neptune over the next year and half to two years, we should see the conditions in Russia really begin to deteriorate.

We also have to consider transiting Uranus, which is now at 19+ Taurus, conjunct the Putin regime’s Saturn at 20 Taurus. (Putin’s first inauguration ceremony began at 12:00pm and he accepted the position at 12:23pm, May 7, 2000.) This is another indication that Putinism is in crisis and it is in the middle of a shock to the system. However, it also indicates how much Putin is becoming even more radical and reactionary, passing laws that more strictly limit personal freedoms and criminalizing political opposition. It remains to be seen how long the Russian people can put up with this extreme, illiberal authoritarianism. I suspect, not much longer based on the history.

Although most people around the world would probably welcome a regime change in Russia, if the system collapses, the results could bring a serious international crisis. The U.S., the E.U. and even China may have to involve themselves in Russia’s domestic problems in order to stem the tide of violence and anarchy. Most importantly, such a collapse of the civil order would risk the security of the nuclear arsenal. It would also likely lead to serious economic and political problems for the Russian Federation’s component republics, namely, those in Siberia, in the Ural region, in south central Russia and those near the Caucuses. The ethnic rivalries that exist in the Russian Federation bring to mind what happened in the Balkans with the collapse of Yugoslavia. I would hope the world community learned its lesson with Yugoslavia and they’ll strive to soften the landing should the Putin regime begin to collapse in violent revolution.

Without any doubt, if the end of Putinism is accompanied or instigated by political violence, the world will have to figure out how to secure the Russian nuclear arsenal that is spread across various republics in the Federation. And even if the Federation collapses in a relatively peaceful way, those republics will most certainly not turn over their housed nuclear weapons to Moscow, given that Ukraine did just that with a promise of sovereignty, but Moscow invaded anyway. The risk to the world’s safety is obvious. There will have to be an international initiative to solve that problem.

I realize this sounds very ominous, but then Saturn-Neptune, in principle, is not known for risk averse or rational behavior. Their conjunction is often accompanied by paranoid, fear-driven, nationalistic political movements—the Red Scare of 1917-1919, and another Red Scare with McCarthyism in the early 1950s coincided with Saturn-Neptune conjunctions. The beginnings of the German Nazi Party happened at the same time as the 1917-1919 period with the revolution in Germany at the end of WWI. Consider also the elements of McCarthyism with its accompanying ‘Atomic Diplomacy’ and Mutually Assured Destruction, and we get a clear indication of how things can develop in a nuclear armed world under Saturn-Neptune.

We can find corroborative evidence for such an international crisis in the horoscopes for the U.S., especially those for independence in the first week of July 1776, and the horoscope for the coronation of Ivan IV, January 16, 1547 (OS), noon, LAT, in Moscow. Ivan IV is considered to be the founder of Russia as an early modern, monarchical nation-state in contrast to Peter the Great (1721) who created Imperial Russia. The US independence charts have the Moon’s Nodes at 6 Leo/6 Aquarius and Ivan IV’s coronation has the Sun at 5 Aquarius. We can see the havoc that was wrought for both the U.S. and Russia during WWII in the early 1940s when Pluto was last at 4-6 Leo conjunct the US North Node and opposing Russia’s foundational Sun. We are now looking at Pluto transiting 4-6 Aquarius again, hitting the same sensitive points that were hit in WWII, this time conjunct the U.S. South Node and Russia’s Sun. As previously mentioned, this will happen at the same time as the 2026 Saturn-Neptune conjunction.