Most Americans were taken by surprise last weekend when Russia seemed about to erupt into a civil war. Watching the Wagner Group, a mercenary army, take over the Southern headquarters of the Russian military in Rostov-on-Don and charge virtually unimpeded towards Moscow stunned Americans. In power for 23 years, Vladimir Putin had never been challenged so boldly before. Is the Russian tyrant on the way out?
Trying to make sense of events as they have unfolded has been difficult and not just because the names of people and places often seem unpronounceable. There are several serious reasons for our uncertainty. The most obvious, of course, being that our attention in the region has been concentrated on Russia’s war in Ukraine with little thought that Putin’s hold on power might be in question.
There are also institutional obstacles to our understanding of recent events: 1) most Americans normally do not devote much time or effort to political discussions about foreign affairs; at the moment we appear to be more concerned with banning books and muzzling teachers; and 2) the American news media in recent years has downsized it foreign affairs resources. There are no longer any Eric Sevareids or Walter Cronkites to guide us through the swamp.
Americans generally do not appreciate the complexities that undergird the control exercised by a despot. Force or coercion alone is rarely the sole source of an autocrat’s dominion. Sometimes his sway is the result of apathy or the desire for calm and stability even if access to freedom is limited. More likely it is based on a web of surreptitious and self-serving relationships among individuals in key power centers of the society in question. That appears to be Putin’s situation.
A central character in the current turmoil is an enigma in his own right. Yevgeny Prigozhin is an ex-con, who while in the St. Petersburg restaurant business got close to Putin when the latter was the Russian capital’s deputy mayor. After Putin in 2000 became Russia’s president, Prigozhin began catering major state dinners and became known as “Putin’s chef”.
As noted in an Economist profile, “there was nothing trivial about Prigozhin’s restauranteur role.” His skill in organizing lavish events was very useful to Putin, whose KGB career had not prepared him for maximizing public appearances. And then there is the matter of “political poisoning” which has a long history in Russia. Earning Putin’s trust early on, Prigozhin in the process also acquired a fortune from contracts to provide food services to schools and prisons as well as the Russian army.
The exact origins of the Wagner Group are unclear. Prigozhin, who has no known military training or experience, initially denied involvement with the mercenary outfit that first surfaced in big way in 2014. Serving in Ukraine as “ghost soldiers,” operating in uniforms without identifying insignia, the Wagner Group was tasked with unifying the separatist groups that supported Russian intervention.
Shortly after this success, Prigozhin put together the Internet Research Agency (IRA), a network of trolls which floods social media with Russian propaganda and disinformation. Focusing on both international and domestic targets, the IRA has been indicted for its alleged attempt to interfere with the 2016 US presidential election, but it also promotes Putin’s agenda to Russian audiences.
Since 2014, the Wagner Group has been deployed in pursuit of Russian interests in several countries, including Syria, Libya, Mali and the Central African Republic. Prigozhin appears to have operated with Kremlin approval and financial support. His mercenaries did not appear to be involved in the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, but after a few months when the Russian military machine stalled, the presence of the Wagner Group became highly visible.
The mercenary force has suffered significant casualties in Ukraine. Prigozhin, whose leadership role was confirmed in a September 2022 video showing him seeking recruits in a Russian prison yard, has admitted that 20,000 Wagner Group soldiers died in the siege of Bakhmut alone. He blames Russia’s military leadership for the heavy losses, calling out by name Sergei Shoigu, the minister of defense and General Valery Gerasimov, chief of the general staff. Not only does he label them corrupt and incompetent, he accuses them of failing to provide adequate ammunition and artillery support for his fighters.
There is evidence of disdain for Prigozhin among the Russian military brass. Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a former oligarch living in London, claims Shoigu and Gerasimov consider the Wagner Group “cannon fodder” and had no intention of supporting the mercenaries. Shoigu has managed to secure Putin’s support for requiring all mercenary groups to sign contracts with his ministry and had cut off Prigozhin’s access to prison recruits. The day before Prigozhin launched his mutiny, he accused Shoigu of ordering a rocket strike on Wagner troops.
Putin’s reaction to the mutiny has been marked by some ambivalence. Although he denounced at once the “stab in the back of our country and our people,” Putin did not mention Prigozhin by name in any of his remarks. And he quickly offered amnesty to anyone in the Wagner Group who would lay down their weapons immediately.
In subsequent statements the Russian president vowed to punish those responsible, but at the same time he allowed his Belarusian puppet, Alexander Lukashenko to negotiate with Prigozhin a peaceful end to the mutiny and to provide the mercenary leader a safe have in Belarus---at least for the moment. According to Lukashenko, Putin wanted to “wipe out” the Wagner chieftain, but he, Lukashenko had warned that such action could lead to a revolt among Prigozhin’s fighters.
The episode appears so bizarre that some have even speculated it may have been a “false” coup actually staged by Putin. There is really little evidence of that scenario. On the one hand, Putin must be concerned about the absence of any serious opposition to Prigozhin’s “march on justice” towards Moscow last Saturday. On the other hand, he does not appear to have identified any traitorous enablers.
A Washington-based think tank, The Institute for the Study of War, claims that Putin has replaced Gerasimov as overall theater commander in Ukraine with his deputy Colonel General Mikhail Teplinsky, although Gerasimov is retaining his post as chief of the general staff. The Institute also reports that General Sergei Surovikin, Gerasimov’s predecessor in Ukraine and a Prigozhin sympathizer, is likely to be a scapegoat for the rebellion.
Exactly how the turmoil in Russia will play out remains unclear. Americans may in fact be disappointed with the final outcome. Already Putin has responded with a swarm of missile against civilian targets in Ukraine. Despots often react to possible disloyalty by taking a few random heads just to show they are still in control.
So far, the Biden administration has offered minimum comment regarding the unrest in Moscow. This is wise. The United States should not distract world attention from the Russian tumult. Joe Biden knows this matter is not about him, and he’s satisfied to keep it that way.
Better that the Biden team keep the focus on aiding Ukraine in its fight against Kremlin aggression. It is uncertain how Prigozhin’s mutiny might affect the Russian war effort, but Putin, or someone else, may decide it is time to reassess.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/27/world/europe/prigozhin-wagner-russia-putin.html?campaign_id=
https://www.economist.com/1843/2023/06/12/abominable-showman-the-rise-of-wagners-yevgeny-prigozhin
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https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/26/world/europe/ukraine-counteroffensive.html?campaign_id=2&emc