For several hours on Friday and Saturday, it seemed Russian President Vladimir Putin was in serious danger of losing his grip on a nation he has led for more than two decades.
A deal struck Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner Group mercenary army that had advanced to the outskirts of Moscow late Saturday, ended what many saw as a coup attempt. Under the terms of the deal, Prigozhin agreed to call off a military assault on the Russian capital, withdraw forces from the captured city of Rostov-on-Don and leave Russia for Belarus.
All that did little to calm speculation that the episode marked the end of Putin’s iron grip on Russia. The question now is how strong that grip remains — and whether it could soon face another similar challenge.
How the mutiny began
With his prison-recruited Wagner mercenaries, Prigozhin had made some gains on the battlefield in Ukraine, where they fought for Russia. As he did so, he grew ever more vocal in his criticism of the Ministry of Defense, and of Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu in particular.
Many Russians who had been promised a painless war came to share his frustration, turning the burly, profane Prigozhin into a folk hero.
U.S. intelligence appeared to know that Prigozhin’s ire towards Shoigu was heading toward a confrontation, but it did not know what that confrontation would look like.
“The tension had been building for so long without anything actually happening,” an intelligence official told CNN. The tension crested on Saturday, as Wagner forces streamed toward Moscow.
Safe harbor in Belarus
Prigozhin ended his push toward Moscow at the behest of Belorussian dictator Alexander Lukashenko, one of Putin’s few allies in Europe. The deal promised Prigozhin safe passage to Belarus; the Wagner fighters who had followed him to Moscow would face no charges for taking part in a mutiny. It appears that other Wagnerites—those who had not joined the uprising—would be integrated into regular army units.
Those were highly unusual, and lenient, terms. In a speech from the Kremlin early Saturday, Putin had promised “harsh” retribution. But so far, he has shown rare restraint.
‘An organized resistance movement’
Discontent had been brewing in the Kremlin ever since it became clear that the Ukraine invasion would not result in the quick victory Putin and his top generals imagined. That unhappiness has now burst into the open, and without a strong counterpunch from Putin, he is bound to see more challenges to his rule.
“The existence of an organized resistance movement against Putin within the military has always been speculative. It’s now accurate to say it is no longer speculation,” a Kremlin insider told the Daily Beast.
Others also believe that Prigozhin would not have acted without sanction from at least some figures in Putin’s inner circle.
A good day for Ukraine
Prigozhin’s brazen advance materialized as Ukraine was engaged in a counteroffensive meant to claw back territory taken by Russia in the country’s eastern regions.
Launched in earnest this month, the military campaign has been slow, as Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has acknowledged.
Kremlin disarray can only help Zelensky’s cause — and bolster his case to Western allies whose support is crucial.
“Russia’s weakness is obvious,” Zelensky said on Saturday. “Full-scale weakness.”
Ukraine has no intentions of seizing Moscow or toppling Putin, but the events of the last 48 hours made clear that the Kremlin barely has tenuous control over its internal affairs, let alone the theater of war, where its military campaign has faltered.
Supporters of Ukraine will now likely argue that victory is not only possible but closer than had been supposed.
“It is too good to be true,” one Ukrainian official said.
Putin the survivor
Putin is still the leader of Russia, and he has extralegal means at his disposal — assassinations, trumped-up charges that result in lengthy prison sentences, rigged elections that suppress dissent — that leaders of democratic nations cannot use to stay in power.
He controls the popular media, the financial sector, and a military that, while depleted by the war in Ukraine, remains loyal to the Kremlin.
“Putin will likely survive, for now,” diplomat Ivo Daalder wrote on Twitter. But, he added, “the last 24 hours raise serious questions about his hold on power.”
(Yahoo News)
