Jamie Dettmer is Opinion Editor at POLITICO Europe.
Nothing to see here – now please move on.
A little over a week after the 36-hour uprising by Yevgeny Prigozhin and his Wagner Group mercenaries, this appears to be the line taken by the Kremlin, its propagandists and supporters.
The politicians and officials who remained menacingly silent and bowed their heads as the shock rebellion unfolded are now all rallying, flocking to President Vladimir Putin and praising his cleverness while attempting to trivialize Wagner’s military contribution to the war against Ukraine .
“Had people like Putin been at the head of the state in 1917 and 1991, there would have been no revolution and the collapse of the USSR,” Vyacheslav Volodin, chairman of Russia’s lower house, told the Duma. Putin came out even stronger, he said on Telegram.
Meanwhile, Andrei Kartapolov, chairman of the Duma’s Defense Committee, was quoted by the state news agency TASS as saying Wagner’s absence on the battlefield would not have any ill effects. “There is no risk of a decline in combat potential in the medium or long term,” he said. And state television channel Rossiya-1 has also downplayed the paramilitary group’s effectiveness on the battlefield, calling its role in the war an exaggerated and “constructed myth.”
Thus, Putin’s propaganda machine has regained its footing and voice after being misled by the armed rebellion led by convict-turned-caterer-turned-warlord. And Russia’s modern-day tsar has emerged again – now that the immediate threat appears to have passed.
This is a pattern that Putin has observed time and time again, and one that disappears whenever serious problems arise — be they man-made or natural disasters. For example, he was largely absent as the pandemic unfolded, as Moscow struggled to contain its spread and St. Petersburg braced for a surge in cases. Instead, he retired to his Novo-Ogaryovo estate on the outskirts of Moscow.
Likewise, in 2000, Putin was vacationing at his residence in the Black Sea resort of Sochi when the Kursk nuclear submarine sank in the Barents Sea. He eventually met with the families of the 118 victims when a media storm broke out, but the meeting did not go well as he was accused of inaction and the military’s incompetence.
On the other hand, in 2018 Putin was criticized for his slow response to a massive fire at a shopping center in the Siberian city of Kemerovo that killed at least 64 people – including 41 children. Bereaved families accused him of repeating enforced disappearances in Kursk.
And now that Prigozhin’s rebellion is over, Putin has apparently appeared in Dagestan in recent days, mingling with an admiring crowd in what Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called an “amazing display of support and happiness.” He also delivered a speech in a Kremlin square to 2,500 members of the military, security forces and national guard, thanking them for crushing the mutiny and saving Russia from chaos.
The message conveyed is that Putin is in control; that he never lost control, that he was loved, and that he acted prudently – allowing the talks to bring the mutiny to a conclusion without further bloodshed, and then offering Prigozhin a way out with exile to neighboring Belarus.
The coherence here stands in stark contrast to the confusion as the uprising began – from the stunned initial silence of state broadcasters, who had no orders from the Kremlin, to the mixed messages that followed, including claims that the West must be behind it all. And as Prigozhin flew towards the Russian capital, executive planes, including those of oligarchs Arkady Rotenberg, Vladimir Potanin and Industry and Trade Minister Denis Manturov, began leaving Moscow, according to investigative website Vazhniye Istorii. Friends said that Manturov had long planned a weekend trip to Turkey.
The confusion was even further away as regional governors were unsure what to do or what to expect. And the first sign of direction finally came some 24 hours later from Sergei Kiriyenko, Putin’s first deputy chief of staff, who ordered governors and regional leaders to show public support for the Russian leader.
And they did. Although the statement of the head of Buryatia Alexei Tsydenov was strikingly ambiguous: “You know that our people are equally worried about their loved ones … whether they are listed in the army … or Wagner.” We are watching all your heights and Depths alike,” he said.
But now the genie is back in the bottle. Or is it? Questions remain.
How exactly did a ragtag group of mercenaries master this challenge? How could they take control of Rostov – a key logistics hub and military headquarters – and then drive up the M4 motorway, encountering resistance only around Voronezh, which is a six-hour drive from the Russian capital, and still manage to make it to 240 come? kilometers away from the outskirts of Moscow? Why were the armed forces, security services and national guard so slow to respond? And how is it that the security services – including the GRU military intelligence agency, which has close ties to Wagner – don’t realize what Prigozhin was planning?
Was it incompetence or treason? Probably both. And that’s undoubtedly what Putin and his cronies are trying to weigh as they sneak through the ranks of the security services, armed forces, and government technocrats. Who can you trust? Who made ambiguous? Who Was Treacherous? Most observers don’t expect a quick, full-scale purge – Putin may not be strong enough for that – and there are already confusing signs of who’s in and who’s out. Kremlinology is a breeze.
So far, however, some Western media have reported that General Sergei Surovikin, deputy commander of Russian forces in Ukraine, has been arrested. And according to Alexei Venediktov, the former head of the independent radio station Echo Moskvy, which was shut down by the authorities last year, Surovikin and his closest associates have not had contact with their families for several days.
But pro-Kremlin political scientist Sergei Markov believes that Surovikin is still destined to replace Valery Gerasimov as chief of staff – which was one of Prigozhin’s key demands. Markov has also proposed Alexei Dyumin, governor of the strategically important Tula region and a former top security official, to succeed Sergei Shoygu as defense minister. “But that will not happen immediately, so it cannot be considered that Shoygu and Gerasimov were removed at the rebel’s request,” he wrote.
Should that happen, it would be a significant victory for Prigozhin, who for months had been calling for the overthrow of Gerasimov and Shoigu. Surovikin and Prigozhin have reportedly been close since 2015, when they were both active in Syria. And the Meduza news site pointed out that both Dyumin and Dmitry Mirono — another rising star and former head of the Yaroslavl region — have tacitly supported Prigozhin.
So is the genie really back in the bottle? Unlikely. And in Russia’s near future, there seems to be more witch hunts and rumours, more scrums and infighting, as factions and clans ponder how to ensure they don’t end up in Putin’s endgame – however short or long it may be become victims.