The mutiny of Evgeny Prigozhin Vladimir Putin’s request to enlist his mercenaries from the Wagner group in the ranks of the official Russian army opens a completely new phase in the decomposition of the regime.
Until now, at least formally, the conflict between “Putin’s cook” and the Defense Ministry was a confrontation that took place under the supervision of the Kremlin, and some had even speculated that the Russian president used Prigozhin’s brutality to scare his generals, and while there were also some Western partners appalled at the prospect of having to negotiate no longer with an elderly colonel of the former KGB, but with a warlord who kills enemies with hammers. It seems that the puppet has ripped the strings: the head of Wagner not only he refused Putin’s proposal to “get in order”, also to enjoy “social guarantees”, but he replied that it is the president who has to think about how to keep faith with the commitments made with the Wagners when he sent them to bail out his devastated army in Bakhmut.
The meaning of Prigozhin’s ‘mutiny’
It is the first time that someone has responded with a “niet” to Putin, and if the Kremlin does not react, and quickly, to this rebellion, what many Russian politicians and oligarchs have already guessed will become official: a alternative center of power, based on military strength, on a private army. Putin’s unchallenged dominance was based on “power vertical” which he had built in a quarter of a century, a quasi-monarchical system in which legitimacy, power and money derived from the president, and members of the ruling class obtained their position thanks to the favor they met with the supreme leader.
Prigozhin’s origin is exactly the same as that of the other hierarchs, but he is the first to dare to “set up on his own”. An opportunity given by the war, which has dramatically increased his power as sole military force of some efficiency, supported by a media campaign that is as brutal as it is spot on. Prigozhin is today the only member of the regime to tell the truth about a persian war, and to put it with the caustic harshness typical of his character. Eliminating him now means for Putin not only jeopardizing the already slim chance of progress on the battlefield, but hitting a man who is building a popularity increasingly widespread, especially among nationalists disillusioned with the president. However, not eliminating him means destroying the supreme leader’s monopoly on violence. If Putin does not react to the “no” of a mercenary commander, he means that his Russia “has become a failed state”, according to the definition of the political scientist Abbas Galyamov.
Prigozhin’s power does not only come from being the “conqueror of Bakhmut” who cannot be punished. All (or almost all) of Putin’s entourage realize that the war will never be won, and that it should be closed as soon as possible to save what can be saved. The meeting of the president with the “war correspondents”, on June 13, left the most aggressive propagandists of the invasion of Ukraine dumbfounded: Putin showed off a vision of the situation on the ground closest to the fakes spread by the Ministry of Defense which to reality, was sloppy, rambling and soothing. According to Galyamov, the classic phrase “in the end Putin will decide”the reassuring final verdict of every dispute for 24 years, today sounds worrying in the ears of its hierarchs.
Post-Putin Movements
The Russian elite is petrified in anticipation of the “after”, which everyone realizes is inevitable and everyone wishes someone else could bring about, because the prospect of a total collapse of the regime – in a managerial group in which no one trusts their colleagues – risks leading to a war of all against all. It is no coincidence that various protagonists of Russian politics – from the Gazprom consortium to individual Putin oligarchs such as Gennady Timchenko, to regional leaders such as the leaders of Crimea and Chechnya – have begun to form their own “private armies” modeled on the Wagners, and even Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu has an army of contractors. Formations that serve not so much to score points in war, as to become insurance for that “after” which is becoming increasingly probable, in the absence of Putin’s political ability to engage reverse gear.
In this perspective, Prigozhin’s 50,000 rifles have become a crucial asset, the card that can change the game. In a system that measures power by the amount of fear it can instill, the “Putin’s cook” who says no to his boss becomes a man few would dare say no to. He can ask for and obtain very large economic resources from the oligarchs seeking protection. He can guarantee one power transition, like Marshal Georgiy Zhukov, in the post-Stalin transition. The comparison between the conqueror of Berlin who defeated the Nazis and an ex-con who commands an army of convicts may sound provocative, but it offers a measure of the degeneration of the Soviet Union 2.0 that Putin has been trying to resurrect. The result is one kleptocracy which is turning into a “failed state” at the risk of a war between clans. In such a system, a man who looked like a crazed splinter turns out to be the first to have sensed the need for a private army, thanks to which he can aspire to become a “kingmaker”. O un”kingslayer“.
TELEGRAM/WAGNER – NPK’s photo on copertina