Get free updates on the war in Ukraine
We’ll send you a myFT Daily Digest email every morning with the latest news on the war in Ukraine.
The author is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in Berlin and a visiting fellow at the European University Institute in Florence
Vladimir Putin seems to have overcome his biggest domestic crisis since the Chechen war that began his rule. However, the Russian President’s allies at home and abroad do not rush to congratulate him. The mood among the elite and the tone of the official propaganda are anything but triumphant. The mere possibility of a coup after 23 years of rule and the second year of the Ukraine war – a campaign designed to gloss over Putin and his regime – calls into question his power over Russia. It also challenges the idea of unanimous support from a patriotic majority.
The capture of Rostov-on-Don, one of Russia’s largest cities, by the leader of the Wagnerian military group Yevgeny Prigozhin and their rapid advance to within 200 kilometers of Moscow painted a horrifying picture of the authorities’ impotence, albeit partly by desire , to avoid bloodshed . Some Rostov residents even presented flowers to the mutineers of the private military company. The people of a country taught by state propaganda that there is no greater treachery than “color revolutions” performed the symbolic gesture typical of such uprisings.
Prigozhin’s uprising had its origins in a disruption to an internal balance that Putin had maintained for years but which began to crumble after the faltering invasion of Ukraine. Many Russian citizens refuse to recognize their country’s weaknesses. They blame the defeats in Ukraine on indecisiveness and betrayal at the top. Failures at the front have led to calls for increased militarization of the economy and purges of the elite. Prigozhin’s vision for Russia went even further: a vast North Korea with a fully mobilized population and economy, at least until victory.
Before the invasion, Prigozhin played the role of service provider in the Russian system. With Wagner and his troll factory, the ex-convict was doing Putin a favor by taking on responsibilities the state was reluctant to undertake on its own behalf: intimidating domestic enemies, interfering in foreign elections and fighting in Africa. As a result, an increasingly ambitious non-state entity with state functions emerged.
With Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and Wagner’s significant contribution to the war, Prigozhin’s function changed. He conducted public campaigns marked by provocative statements on domestic and foreign policy. His calls to punish the state apparatus and mobilize the private sector quickly garnered him a great deal of support.
Prigozhin decided to cross the border after June 10, when Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu issued an order to place “voluntary” combat units under his ministry. As a result, Prigozhin threatened the loss of his most important power capital to the official Russian armed forces. However, he did not challenge Putin directly, and with good reason. During two decades in power, Putin has become so integrated in the eyes of the populace that to act against him would, for many, be an attack on Russia itself.
Prigozhin’s goal seems not to have been to overthrow the ruler, but to partially replace him. Deposing Shoigu would have allowed Prigozhin to demonstrate his importance not only as a mercenary commander but also as a politically influential figure. Prigozhin’s attack on Shoigu, whose military successes in Crimea and Syria made him the regime’s second most popular figure after Putin, was an attempt to secure that position.
Putin has avoided the worst-case scenario: civil war-like clashes between “patriots”, bloodshed and the army’s shelling of cities. The state apparatus, especially in the regions of Russia, showed at least passive loyalty. However, all this came with a huge load on the system. Prigozhin’s actions have put the pro-war camp, which respected him greatly, in a difficult position. The charges of treason so often leveled against opponents of the war can now be blamed on some of his supporters. The official dividing line between “good” and “bad” Russians or “patriots” and “traitors” is no longer clear.
Russia’s “patriotic majority” has always suspected the country’s wealthy rulers and private business elite of being indifferent to national interests and ordinary people. That was Prigozhin’s claim, and it will continue to resonate despite his apparent offside.
Putin must either continue to act in the precarious role of protector of the “corrupt elite” or, under the pressure of last weekend’s events, embark on a purge of that elite. In this sense, Prigozhin’s adventure could mean the end not only of the current form of Putin’s regime, but with it the end of the entire legacy of post-Soviet Russia.