Prigozhin vs Putin: Crows do not pick crow's eyes

We, Ukrainians, can be understood. The best scenario that brings our victory closer or protects the future of our children from a repeat of the war is the collapse of Russia. That is why the Prigozhin rebellion was perceived by most Ukrainians as the beginning of a civil war in Russia. This war would be both the path to the collapse of Russia and revenge for the deaths of Ukrainians.

For several months, we watched with interest the development of the conflict between Prigozhin and the Russian military command, not even hoping that it could escalate into a "march on Moscow". And then suddenly…

As it turned out, there were many Russians who also relied on Prigozhin to change and punish corrupt generals, or even the entire elite, whose children, as the head of the Wagner PMC said, are not fighting. At the very least, we can state that the crowd rallying in support of the Wagner soldiers on the streets of Rostov demonstrates that there is revolutionary potential in Russian society. It is leftist, and by no means liberal-democratic. Nevertheless, the very fact that protest moods exist in Russia and that many people are willing to openly demonstrate support for a national hero (albeit a fake one, and not a national hero) can already be seen as a good prospect for future domestic political destabilisation of Russia.

“So why did Prigozhin disappoint everyone so quickly, and why did his "march of justice" not become not only the beginning of a civil war, but even a rebellion”

Didn't want to shed the blood of his compatriots? He had shed it before, and without a twinge of conscience. According to Prigozhin's own estimates, his PMC lost 20,000 fighters in the meaty assaults against Ukraine. According to our data, it is many times more. We can also recall the sledgehammer, the executions of their own wounded, filmed on Ukrainian drones, the abuse of Russian servicemen, as described by a captured Russian officer, and, finally, the helicopters and an aircraft of the Russian Armed Forces shot down during the march.

Perhaps Prigozhin saw the futility of his plan to capture the Ministry of Defence and the General Staff, and to take Shoigu and Gerasimov prisoner. Indeed, it would have been unclear what to do next. At the same time, it was easy to foresee this futility at the beginning of the march on Moscow.

Was it an emotional impulse? No, it was not. There is already a lot of evidence, including US intelligence data, of the long preparation of this campaign.

“Was Prigozhin betrayed by someone who promised support in Moscow but changed his mind or failed? This version is more likely to be true. However, before drawing a conclusion about the prospects for a rebellion by Moscow's elites against the Putin regime, several factors must be taken into account:”

Firstly, let's pay attention to the main thing: during his march, Prigozhin did not criticise Putin himself. Prigozhin never once said that he was going to take over the Kremlin, the government, or anything else besides the Russian Defence Ministry and General Staff. No matter how much they talk about Putin's weakness and fright today, the fact remains that Prigozhin stopped exactly after the Russian president's appeal, the opening of a criminal case against him by the FSB, and the PMC's proposed withdrawal scenario.

Today, many people, primarily in Russia itself, are asking themselves how the case was closed and the 20 dead pilots forgiven. They quarreled, made up, and ran away. And all this within one day. Is Putin really so weak and Moscow so vulnerable that he was afraid of 25,000 Prigozhin fighters (despite the fact that, as we know, Prigozhin did not have 25,000 people).

The answer to these questions is well illustrated by the folk saying "crows do not pick crow's eyes".

To understand what it was, if not a rebellion; why Prigozhin did not start a civil war in Russia; and why Russians should not rely on Prigozhin as a defender of ordinary mortals, it is necessary to understand who this Prigozhin is and why he is allowed to do so much.

“Prigozhin, as you know, began his stunning rise from the mud to the prince from prison. Back in the 1990s, the Russian security forces merged with organised crime (primarily the FSB, as described by Litvinenko, who was poisoned with polonium in London). In fact, this mafia is today's FSB and other Russian law enforcement agencies. Moreover, the understanding of Russia as a failed state is rapidly evolving after the Prigozhin riots into the concept of a mafia state”

We don't know (and it doesn't matter) what talents young Prigozhin had that attracted this organised crime, but it is clear that after his early release, he dramatically changed his life for the better. So much for the better that he "grew up" to personally serve Putin and his distinguished guests (French President Jacques Chirac, for example) in his own restaurant. The same Putin who is in bunker. He is afraid of being poisoned, infected with the disease. (The military commanders who recently met with the Russian president are undergoing a 14-day quarantine, despite the fact that the covid epidemic has already ended.) Of course, a random person would not feed Putin.

The Prigozhin trolls worked for the interests of the Russian authorities. Just as the Wagner PMC carried out specific missions in other countries in the interests of the Kremlin on the principle of "we are not there". All of these are not just commercial orders that Prigozhin managed to get. These are very specific special operations of the Russian state, carried out by special operations forces.

“These are the keys we need to understand that Prigozhin is a man of the system. And this system is the Russian special services. We can only guess which ones. However, we can say with certainty that Prigozhin is an important element of the fragile system of checks and balances in the Russian security forces”

Prigozhin's conflict with the Russian army is not a personal emotion. The large-scale aggression against Ukraine did not go according to plan, and someone has to be held accountable for Russia's future defeat in Ukraine. The military will be appointed as such responsible. Moreover, Russian generals give many reasons for this. 

So, the attack on Ukraine was a Kremlin initiative. But the army, which was heavily invested in reform, was by no means the second best in the world and not at all modern. Generals lied and stole before the war, and continue to steal and lie today. In fact, so did all the elites of the Putin regime. The generals, as expected, do not want to be responsible for the defeat and do not want to be in the Russian dock after the war is lost. In case of their possible opposition to future arrests, in October last year, Putin's personal army, the FSO, held exercises on the streets of Moscow to practice countering the seizure of the Kremlin.

Over the past autumn and winter, we could observe an information campaign in Russia against its own military, with Prigozhin and Kadyrov at the forefront. All this was the result of the Kremlin's dissatisfaction with the poor performance of the Russian Armed Forces. 

However, during the war, (and this is quite logical) in anticipation of the Ukrainian summer offensive, Putin had to make a temporary reconciliation. He needs the army now more than he needs the PMCs and even the FSB, which, at the same time, may well be needed tomorrow, after the defeat in Ukraine. The conflict between the security forces' camps was publicly curtailed, with Kadyrov taking Putin's side (there's money in it), but Prigozhin could not slow down. An executive's excess. The starting point was Putin's order to sign contracts with the Ministry of Defence. It turned out that a powerful military formation was being taken away from Prigozhin and the power structure he represents, handed over to his opponents, and the business that is the reason for all other businesses (including contracts for school meals in Moscow) was being taken away. Wagner's rank-and-file members also did not want to become mere suicide soldiers in the mindless meat assaults of Russian generals.

“No one would have pardoned Prigozhin by himself. But the main function of the Russian president is to mediate in conflicts between elites”

The Russian newspaper Medusa has learned that on the day of his mutiny, Yevgeny Prigozhin tried to talk to Putin, but he refused, he was not up to the task. Instead, the talks were conducted by a group of high-ranking officials, including the head of the presidential administration, Anton Vaino, the secretary of the Russian Security Council, Nikolai Patrushev (head of the FSB from 1999 to 2008), and the Russian ambassador to Belarus, Boris Gryzlov. In this list, Patrushev is clearly the key figure. A consensus was reached and, at the same time, a new task for the PMC was found, which was a good bonus in the process of persuading Putin. It was a relocation to Belarus. The speed of the agreement with Lukashenko does not indicate a staged or "multi-move" Prigozhin rebellion; the Russian leadership suffered too much image damage in one day. Rather, we can state the level of non-independence and dependence of the self-proclaimed president of Belarus.

Whether Prigozhin is killed later or not is no longer important.

What are the important conclusions we can draw from this story?

Firstly, there is a scenario of blaming the Russian army for the war and the defeat in the war. This creates the potential for post-war destabilisation within Russia.

Secondly, Russia is certainly not a state, it is a failed state. Everything rests on the agreements of influence groups, and this balance is very shaky. Serious tests by war and sanctions are already beginning to destroy this balance.

Thirdly, there is a demand for an end to the war in the Russian security forces, and Putin is under some pressure, as evidenced by Putin's own strange statements about negotiations and Prigozhin's more direct statements.

And finally, Russian society has Bolshevik-style protest moods, based on the principle of take and divide, which is fertile ground for internal political destabilisation, which can develop in Russia under favourable conditions and in the presence of a popular leader.

Source

About the author. Iryna Pavlenko, Head of the Department at the National Institute for Strategic Studies, expert at the Institute for the Transformation of Northern Eurasia

The editors do not always share the views expressed by the authors of the blogs.