Mutiny in Russia

 In his 23-year hold on power, Russian President Vladimir Putin woke up to the most rattling test of his iron clad rule penultimate weekend. He faced a day-long mutiny by forces of Wagner Group, a mercenary army led by Yevgeny Prigozhin. The mutiny not only progressed nearly unchallenged while it lasted, it was called off by Prigozhin on concessional terms extracted from Putin that were widely viewed as caging his dreaded sting. Much to the disappointment of his many foes, Putin survived in power. Only he did at the cost of coming across as demystified and vulnerable, rather than impregnable as was hitherto assumed. Effectively, the Putin mystique was dented, but it may be a long way yet from being ended.

Paramilitary Wagner Group had been a major fighting force for Russia in her invasion of Ukraine that elicited worldwide condemnation and was met with robust alliance with Ukraine by the West to thwart the expansionist aggression. It may be tangential but nonetheless noteworthy that the group’s rebellion fell on the 16-month anniversary of that invasion, which Russia launched on 24th February, last year.

Wagner’s mutiny began penultimate Friday, 23rd June, with Prigozhin, a long time Putin ally, threatening an armed rebellion against Russia’s military leadership after accusing Russian troops of shelling his forces from the air earlier that day. Reports said 30 Wagner fighters were killed, while the force shot down a Russian fighter jet. “There are 25,000 of us and we are coming to sort things out… Those who want to join us, it’s time to finish with this mess,” the mercenary warlord was reported saying. But that was only a trigger event, because Prigozhin had for some while questioned the Kremlin’s motives for the war in Ukraine and accused Russian military chiefs of incompetence in prosecuting the war. He dismissed the government’s justification for invading Ukraine, blamed Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu for the country’s military shortcomings and accused him of conducting the invasion for the benefit of Russian oligarchs; he indeed demanded Shoigu’s removal by Putin. Prigozhin had also rebuffed alleged plans by the Russian leadership to disband Wagner. Tensions between him and Russia’s military had been rising for months, and hours after his remarks about Russian attack on Wagner forces, officials denounced him and opened an investigation against him for plotting armed rebellion.

It was perhaps in making good what he was being accused of that Wagner fighters under Prigozhin’s command, on 24th June, seized control of the southern Russian city of Rostov, a military hub on the country’s border with Ukraine, and deployed a column of hundreds of armored vehicles towards Moscow. The convoy reportedly came within 200 miles of the national capital before Prigozhin called it off after he struck a deal with the Kremlin to end the operation through a pact brokered by Belarus President Alexsandr Lukashenko. That Saturday evening, state media in Belarus reportedly announced unexpectedly that the country’s leader had negotiated Prigozhin’s consent to halt his forces’ advance on the Russian capital, with the Kremlin also having agreed to drop charges against the mercenary chief and allow that he flee to Belarus. Kremlin spokesman, Dmitri Peskov, was reported saying the pact was struck to “avoid bloodshed, avoid an internal confrontation (and) avoid clashes with unpredictable consequences.” He did not indicate that the uprising would result in any changes in the Russian military leadership as Prigozhin had demanded, and he said Russia’s military operations in Ukraine would continue. Analysts argued, though, that Belarus’s Lukashenko, who is a protégé of Putin, moved swiftly to mediate a truce because his own staying power relies heavily on the Russian leader. Had Putin fallen, Lukashenko would also have become vulnerable, so in aiding his patron, he also aided himself.

“(Mutiny): the Putin mystique was dented, but it may be a long way yet from being ended.”

Prigozhin kept low on Sunday, a day after he was seen driving away from the military headquarters in Rostov that his forces had seized during the uprising. He was cited saying, however, that his goal was never to seize political control of the Kremlin and overthrow Putin. According to him, Wagner forces marched on Moscow to protest the failures of Russian military leadership in Ukraine and push back against a planned dissolution of the private army. He explained that Wagner fighters did not attack any Russian soldier “on the ground,” but that that they fired back on those who allegedly attacked them from the air. Russia watchers said it was unclear how safe Prigozhin might be in Belarus, given Putin’s track record of pursuing those whom he believes have betrayed him, whether in Russia or abroad. As if to mark that point, a Kremlin television channel reportedly broadcast a day after the mutiny an old clip of the Russian leader saying the one thing he never forgave was “betrayal.” As of Monday afternoon, Prigozhin was speculated to be staying in a hotel in Minsk, the Belarussian capital, that did not have any windows.

In his first public comment following the mutiny, President Putin said Russia was united against it. Speaking in a brief televised address to the nation, he denounced the organiser of the uprising as a traitor without referencing Prigozhin by name, saying perpetrators would be “brought to justice” and that the Russian military would have put down the rebellion anyway. “This is a criminal activity aimed at weakening the country, this was a colossal threat,” he added. He, however, thanked those involved in the mutiny “who made the only right decision: they did not go the whole hog into fratricidal bloodshed (but) stopped at the last line.” Apparently reaffirming the terms of the deal that upended the mutiny, he said Wagnerites who did not participate could sign up with the Russian military, while any mercenary who chose not to join the Russian army could follow Prigozhin to Belarus or simply “return to your family and friends.” Putin’s decision to grant unilateral clemency to the Wagner mercenaries following what amounted to an attempted coup seemed out of character to Russia watchers, given the strongman image of the Russian leader and his reputation for tackling down critics of his rule, not to mention militants.

The Wagner mutiny not only took the world by surprise, it also dredged up a taboo question in Russia as to whether Putin’s hold on power might not be as gripping internally as it looks from the outside. Besides, the rebellion, though aborted, could have the effect of diminishing Russia’s global standing as foes would have noticed the chink in her armour while partners, like China, should feel the need to reappraise the strength of Putin’s authority. Worse is that the aborted mutiny and the fact that Prigozhin’s army appear to have gotten away with it – reports later last week gave indications they were already regrouping in Belarus – could bolster courage unto rebellion among disenchanted elements of the Russian military itself. After all, it is notorious that many in the military ranks aren’t any longer enthusiastic about the war in Ukraine that has become a deadly drag and turning out to be a monumental miscalculation by the Russian leader. Analysts argued that although Prigozhin called off his men from the mutiny, the damage had been done, not the least because his blistering criticism of Russian military chiefs as incompetent raised questions about the Kremlin’s justifications for invading its neighbor in the first place and undermined Putin’s aura of infallibility.

But it will be hasty to write off the Russian strongman yet. He’s always projected himself as the guarantor of his country’s stability and uncompromising protector of its statehood; and, bruised as he was from the mutiny, he retained a semblance of that persona. He sent Prigozhin away and ultimately achieved what he had wanted ab initio, namely disbanding – or, at least, displacing – Wagner forces. Few strongmen would end up accomplishing an objective through the very threat of opposition plied against that objective, thereby adapting the threat into an endgame of sorts. That was peculiarly Putin brinksmanship. “Stability” was the Kremlin’s refrain during the 2020 referendum that cleared the way for Putin to serve two additional terms until 2036, and he looked like he lived up to the billing though by the skin of the teeth. Besides, amid the 16-month-long war with Ukraine, the Russian leader has sustained appearance of  normalcy at home: he resisted hardline calls to declare martial law or to close the country’s borders; and for the elite, the sting of Western sanctions has been compensated by new business opportunities of wartime economy and a domestic market suddenly free of competition from Western businesses. You’ll see, Putin isn’t finished just yet.