It’s a mark of how much Putin has clamped down in Russia over the years that it’s so much more difficult to follow what’s going on during this coup than in 1991 or during the siege of the parliament building in Moscow in 1993. It doesn’t help that the most important events (that we ‘know’ anything about) are unfolding some distance outside the Russian capital.
In his summary of where things appeared to be on Friday evening, Noah refers to Prigozhin’s Wagner Group ‘as something like Blackwater private contractors, but far more cultish and ideologically nationalist.’ With important distinctions, of course, there’s quite a bit to that, and I would emphasize the cultish aspect of Wagner, and, particularly, the way that that cult fetishizes cruelty and death.
Writing in February, I noted this:
These days, Prigozhin is best known as the founder of the Wagner Group, a Russian mercenary organization connected to the state, but up until recently held (officially) at enough of a distance for a Kremlin connection to be unconvincingly, but helpfully, denied if necessary (the same was true of the Internet Research Agency, a troll farm Prigozhin also admits to have founded). The Wagner Group first emerged in the fighting in the Donbas in 2014, and has since seen service in Syria, Libya, and elsewhere. It is known for recruiting in prisons (Prigozhin himself spent time in prison for robbery in the 1980s) and for its savagery. Execution by sledgehammer has become one of its trademarks. Some comparisons might be made with Nazi Germany’s notorious Dirlewanger Brigade.
You can find details of Prigozhin’s criminal record here.
The thought of Russia becoming Wagnerstan is not something that anyone should welcome. If Prigozhin were to take control in Moscow, any peace in Ukraine would be temporary, no more than a ‘pause.’
Meanwhile, if he didn’t know it before (surely he did), Putin now knows that the war in Ukraine might bring his regime crashing down. If reports about private jets leaving Russia are accurate, some rats may have already decided not to risk the danger that Putin’s ship may be about to go down. IF Putin, however, survives, he will probably do everything he can to end to the war, and ‘everything’ is likely to involve ratcheting up the war rather than the reverse. Bringing the war to an end that he can sell as some sort of win is, obviously, essential to restoring his now badly dented image as a strongman who has things under control, an image that has long been a significant part of his appeal to many Russians.
Putin promised a quiet, orderly life after the disorder of the 1990s. Many Russians took the view that less freedom was a price worth paying for that. A prolonged war in Ukraine has shattered that bargain, something only underlined by the spectacle of armed columns heading for Moscow. On top of that, Ramzam Kadyrov, the Chechen leader (and Putin’s other warlord), has offered to help Putin. Kadyrov is (reportedly, but believably) distrusted by Russia’s elite, his militia is renowned for its savagery, and Russians are not known for their warm feelings about Chechens. A regime propped up by Kadyrov’s thugs is unlikely to satisfy any Russian definition of a quiet life,
Even if Putin does survive this crisis, he may struggle to hold onto power for too long. He has shown remarkable weakness, carelessness, or both, in his handling of the increasingly insubordinate Prigozhin. And that weakness, carelessness or both has endangered the system Putin heads, and thus the position of those near its summit. They are unlikely to be forgiving, and they also know that Putin knows that.