Receive free updates about Vladimir Putin
We’ll send you a myFT Daily Digest email every morning with the latest Vladimir Putin news.
Fifteen months ago, Vladimir Putin’s army was on the outskirts of Kiev. Now the Russian leader is struggling to maintain control of Moscow.
The uprising of the Wagner troops led by Yevgeny Prigozhin is the final confirmation of how disastrous the war in Ukraine has been for Putin. Even if the Russian leader were victorious in the face-to-face struggle against Wagner, it is hard to believe that Putin could ultimately survive this kind of humiliation. His reputation, his power, even his life are now at stake.
The historical irony is that Putin’s own actions have brought about what he fears most: an uprising that threatens both the Russian state and his own power.
Putin’s fears of a “color revolution” in Russia date back almost 20 years. Appropriately, its origins lie in Ukraine. The Orange Revolution of 2004 – a popular democratic uprising against a rigged election in Ukraine – triggered a paranoia in the Russian president that has only grown over the years.
Since then, Putin has been plagued by two interconnected fears. First, that Ukraine would irrevocably escape from Russia’s influence. Second, that a successful pro-democracy uprising in Kiev would be a test run for the same in Moscow.
His decision to invade Ukraine in 2022 was an attempt to finally eradicate both threats by installing a pro-Russian, authoritarian government in Kiev.
As a former intelligence operative and conspiracy theorist, Putin was convinced that the origins of any “color revolution” — whether in Ukraine or Russia — would lie in Washington. His refusal to believe that Ukrainians could have agency or power led him to fatally underestimate the strength of the country’s resistance to a Russian invasion.
Putin not only underestimated Ukraine’s strength, but – drunk on the mythology of the 1940s Red Army – fatally overestimated Russia’s military might. The failure of the Russian army opened the door for the Wagner group to enter the war. This gave Prigozhin his own power base and propaganda platform, and eventually allowed him to turn against the Russian state.
Putin’s address to the Russian people has always been that he saved the country from the anarchy of the 1990s. But what is happening now is reminiscent of the failed coup by the military and hardliners against Mikhail Gorbachev in 1991, when Boris Yeltsin climbed into a tank in front of parliament. At this point, the people of Moscow played a crucial role in the events. The Russian population’s response to the Prigozhin uprising will be a crucial – and as yet unknown – part of this story.
In his first personal remarks on the Prigozhin uprising, Putin looked back on an even more sinister precedent: the alleged “dagger in the back” that ended the Russian war effort in 1917 and plunged the country into revolution and civil war. These words should convey the determination of the target. But they were hardly reassuring.
The Wagner uprising will bring hope to opponents of the Putin regime, both inside and outside Russia. For the Ukrainian military, whose counter-offensive failed to break through, this appears to be a historic opportunity. If Russian forces fight each other or are withdrawn from the front lines to defend Putin, they could collapse in eastern Ukraine.
Political prisoners in Russia, such as Alexei Navalny or Vladimir Kara-Murza, also need to develop a new sense of hope and opportunity. They, too, could play a role in the coming months.
Prigozhin, of course, is not a liberal. Its rhetoric is stridently nationalistic and imperialistic. The Wagner troops have a well-deserved reputation for brutality. But Prigozhin, like Putin, has now unleashed forces that he finds difficult to control.