Jul 19th 2023

Russia's Fractured State 


 

MOSCOW – No development during Vladimir Putin’s 23 years in power has so clearly pointed to his regime’s fragility as the Wagner Group’s aborted mutiny on June 24. The Wagner mercenaries, led by Yevgeny Prigozhin, brazenly challenged the Kremlin’s authority – and now appear to have gotten away with it. Russia’s internal security service, the FSB, has abandoned its criminal investigation into the revolt. But Putin’s problems hardly end with Wagner.

Prigozhin’s fighters would not have been able to travel almost a thousand kilometers (621 miles) within Russian territory in less than a day without help from members of Putin’s inner circle or the military. Rumors are swirling that the billionaire brothers Yuri and Mikhail Kovalchuk may have played a role. The Kovalchuks, close associates of Putin, reportedly share Prigozhin’s belief that Russia has not been forceful enough in the war or in its broader confrontation with the West.

Another possible collaborator is General Sergei Surovikin. Like Prigozhin, Surovikin has reportedly advocated a far more brutal war effort than Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu seems willing to conduct. Since the mutiny, he has not been seen in public, and is said to be “resting.”

dozen or so other senior military figures have been suspended or removed pending further investigation. And it is not only possible involvement in the mutiny that is getting people fired: General Ivan Popov, a senior commander in Ukraine, was dismissed after criticizing the military’s senior leadership for their conduct of the war.

Meanwhile, Wagner fighters are facing no punishment whatsoever. They are expected simply to relocate to Belarus or keep fighting for Russia, but under a different commander. Prigozhin has not even really been exiled, as the deal to end his “march on Moscow” supposedly required. He has been seen in Saint Petersburg and Moscow, where he and dozens of Wagner commanders secretly met with Putin on June 29.

One could argue that this outcome reflects Wagner’s ambiguous status in Russia, where private military organizations are technically illegal. Before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year, Prigozhin denied that Wagner was a private army at all. As Putin recently noted, Wagner “exists,” but not as a “legal entity.” There “is a group,” but legally it “does not exist.”

And yet, in a meeting with Russian military staff on June 27, Putin revealed that last year alone, Wagner forces received 86 billion rubles (almost a billion dollars) from the Russian state for their services. If the mutinous fighters are on the state’s payroll, then they should be court-martialed, not pardoned.

Impunity for Wagner is all the more jarring at a time when ordinary Russians are living in a near-totalitarian police state. Any criticism of the Ukraine war – even merely expressing doubts about its rationale or suggesting that efforts to achieve peace are needed – can land a person in prison or branded as a “foreign agent.” Nowadays, Russians dare to ask questions about the war only in private.

Putin appears to hope that he can rely on Orwellian doublespeak to keep Russians quiet about his approach to Wagner, too. As in the Soviet era, Russians are being ordered to believe ideas that directly contradict each other and historical narratives with no basis in reality. Forget your own knowledge, memory, or experience – the supreme leader knows better.

So, propagandists on every television channel have spent the last few weeks railing against Prigozhin’s treachery and playing up the rebellion’s disastrous potential. This way, Russians will feel relieved that a deal was reached and bloodshed was avoided. But in the days after the mutiny – which Putin had called “treason” – pundits also speculated relentlessly about the kind of amends Prigozhin would have to make to avoid harsh punishment. After all, the pundits reminded Russians, Putin is not known as a forgiving leader.

And yet Putin recently offered employment opportunities to Wagner fighters, who he claims “fought with dignity” but were regrettably “drawn into” the mutiny. He would even allow them to continue fighting as a group he recently explained, though not under Prigozhin. So, if Prigozhin is still an enemy, why does he walk free on Russian soil? Why was he invited to the very meeting at the Kremlin where Putin extended his offer to other Wagner fighters?

Doublespeak cannot obscure such questions. In fact, Putin’s handling of the Wagner mutiny points only to his weakness. The recent behavior of Russia’s elites supports this view. After Popov’s dismissal, Andrei Gurulev, a member of Russia’s parliament, publicized the general’s opinions, which are apparently shared by others in the military. In Putin’s Russia – especially since February 2022 – such expressions of disagreement should not be underestimated.

Discontent with Putin’s leadership is not limited to Russian officials. The latest polls indicate that 53% of Russians are eager to seek peace, compared to 45% in May. Given the pressure the public is under not to criticize the war, the real figure could well be higher. Moreover, 86% of the public reject using tactical nuclear weapons anywhere.

To be sure, Putin’s approval rating remains high, at 81%, and there is little mood for protest. But it may be only a matter of time until that changes. When I was growing up in the Soviet Union, we all publicly praised Leonid Brezhnev’s leadership, despite knowing that the emperor had no clothes. It took a few years and a couple of leaders to get to Mikhail Gorbachev, but get there we did. Likewise, Russians may be afraid to speak out today, but Putin’s weakness – and the cracks in the system he so meticulously built – are unmistakable.


Nina L. Khrushcheva, Professor of International Affairs at The New School, is the co-author (with Jeffrey Tayler) of In Putin’s Footsteps: Searching for the Soul of an Empire Across Russia’s Eleven Time Zones (St. Martin’s Press, 2019). 

Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2023.
www.project-syndicate.org 

 


This article is brought to you by Project Syndicate that is a not for profit organization.

Project Syndicate brings original, engaging, and thought-provoking commentaries by esteemed leaders and thinkers from around the world to readers everywhere. By offering incisive perspectives on our changing world from those who are shaping its economics, politics, science, and culture, Project Syndicate has created an unrivalled venue for informed public debate. Please see: www.project-syndicate.org.

Should you want to support Project Syndicate you can do it by using the PayPal icon below. Your donation is paid to Project Syndicate in full after PayPal has deducted its transaction fee. Facts & Arts neither receives information about your donation nor a commission.

 

 

Browse articles by author

More Current Affairs

Aug 7th 2024
EXTRACT: "China knows that the war has had catastrophic consequences for both Russia and Ukraine. Estimates indicate that Putin’s conflict in Ukraine could cost Russia US$1.3 trillion (£1.0 trillion) and at least 315,000 in troop casualties. So, win or lose, the post-war damage to Russia would be immense. This is bad news for China. Not only will it have a weakened ally, but the west could then have a free hand to consolidate its resources in dealing with the 'Chinese threat'."
Jul 27th 2024
EXTRACT: "......, regardless of the folly of political violence, the attempt on Trump’s life was futile inasmuch as ridding America, and the world, of Trump, would by no means rid us of Trumpism, which was and remains a symptom, and not the root cause, of this country’s moral and epistemic decline. How else could so many millions of Americans support this man? No one can claim that they do not know what he stands for (insofar as he stands for anything other than himself) or what his intentions are: he has made it very clear that his second administration will be not only authoritarian, but fascist in rhetoric and deed.
Jul 17th 2024
EXTRACTS: "Iran unveiled a digital clock counting down the days to the destruction of Israel in 2040. The display, located in Tehran’s Palestine Square, embodies the Islamic Republic’s long-held commitment to annihilating the Jewish state. Some view this promise as a mere rhetorical exercise...." ----- "From Adolf Hitler to Vladimir Putin and even Osama bin Laden, history has taught us to take threats of ideologically inspired attacks at face value. " ---- "......., the key enabler of Iran’s war of attrition is, in fact, Israel’s own government. Netanyahu’s unrealistic goal of achieving 'a complete victory' in Gaza serves Iran’s strategy of miring Israel in an inconclusive conflict while orchestrating a long-term plan to destroy the Jewish state." ----- "It turns out that the only truly irrational, trigger-happy fanatics in this lethal equation are Netanyahu and his theo-fascist allies, who are determined to engage in an apocalyptic war in Gaza and Lebanon." ---- "These messianic hallucinators have a willing collaborator in Netanyahu. Together, they are doing more to annihilate the Jewish national project than Iran could ever hope to achieve on its own."
Jul 16th 2024
EXTRACTS: "In her dissenting opinion in Trump v. United States, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor declared that with the majority’s ruling, 'the President is now a king above the law'. In this, she is wrong: the majority opinion has given the US president far more power than English kings had at the time of the American Revolution." ---- "In June 1686, 11 of the 12 hand-picked justices ruled in favor of the king. Echoing the king’s own solicitor, Sir Thomas Powys, the Lord Chief Justice George Jeffreys contended that if the king did not have leeway above the law, 'the preservation of the government' might be in jeopardy." ---- "In 1689, the English people roundly rejected such reasoning and asserted that their kings would thereafter be subject to the law. They set a precedent by removing James II from office. The Supreme Court’s decision goes beyond threatening more than two centuries of American jurisprudence; it overturns four centuries of Anglo-American jurisprudence. The Roberts majority did not give the president the power of an English king; it gave the president power that an English king could only covet."
Jul 4th 2024
EXTRACT: "Most American voters who believe that Trump is the best defender of democracy are not fascists, much less communists. The very thought would horrify them. But they almost surely have a strong opinion on who constitutes the true American people: God-fearing, hard-working, and most probably white. And they worry that these ordinary Americans are being displaced by illegal immigrants, and that their way of life is being threatened by new ideas about gender, race, and sexuality emerging from elite universities. Trump is stoking these fears and exaggerating these threats. His line that the US courts are attacking not only him, but every right-thinking American is horribly effective. Since he is heard as the true voice of the people, he is the purest democrat. As a result, liberal democracy might not withstand another four years of his rule."
Jul 3rd 2024
EXTRACT: "....the debate showed all too clearly that he is suffering cognitive decline and cannot possibly serve as a competent president for another four years. If Biden is true to his word, and stopping Trump from regaining the presidency is his overriding goal, he needs to announce that at the Democratic Convention in August, he will release his delegates from their obligation to vote for him, and instead ask them to vote for the candidate with the best chance of defeating Trump."
Jul 3rd 2024
EXTRACTS: "Both Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Sonia Sotomayor of the United States Supreme Court have just announced grand opinions trying to resolve the fundamental constitutional issues raised by former President Donald Trump’s claim to absolute immunity" ---- "According to Sotomayor, who wrote for the three dissenting justices, Roberts’ sweeping grant of immunity has 'no firm grounding in constitutional text, history, or precedent.' ” ----- "For what it’s worth, I think that Sotomayor is right and Roberts is wrong." ----"But for now, it is much more important to consider the objection raised by Justice Amy Coney Barrett to both Roberts’ constitutional glorification of the presidency and Sotomayor’s devastating critique of Roberts’ majority opinion." ---- "Barrett is right to ask why Roberts and Sotomayor did not join her in adopting the problem-solving approach that they have repeatedly endorsed in many other contexts." ---- "Roberts took the path that not only betrayed Founding principles, as Sotomayor argued, but also betrayed the very principles to which he has dedicated his entire career. "
Jul 1st 2024
EXTRACTS: "Netanyahu’s disdainful criticism of Biden. Netanyahu knows how indispensable the US is to Israel, as no country has provided Israel with more financial, military, and political support than the US. And no American president has ever been more supportive and committed to Israel's security than President Biden. But then, leave it to the most loathsome Netanyahu, who dares to criticize the president for suspending the shipment specifically of 2,000-pound bombs to continue with his devastating bombardment of Rafah that could indiscriminately kill thousands of innocent civilians." ---- "All Israelis who care about their country’s future must rise and demand the immediate resignation of this corrupt and brazen creature who inflicted untold damage on the only Jewish state, making it a pariah state."
Jun 12th 2024
EXTRACTS: "One of the more amusing exercises on the economic calendar is the International Monetary Fund’s annual review of the United States. Yet while everyone knows that the US government pays absolutely no heed to what the IMF has to say about its affairs, the Fund’s most recent Article IV review of the US economy is striking for one unexpected finding. Readers will be startled to learn that, in the IMF’s estimation, US government debt is on a sustainable path." ---- "What then could go wrong? Well, US institutions could turn out not to be so strong. Donald Trump has a personal history of defaulting on his debts. As William Silber has observed, Trump in a second presidential term could instruct his Treasury secretary to suspend payments on the debt, and neither Congress nor the courts might be willing to do anything about it. The gambit would be appealing to Trump insofar as a third of US government debt is held by foreigners. The damage to the dollar’s safe-asset status would be severe, even if Congress, the courts, or a subsequent president reversed Trump’s suspension of debt payments. Investors in US Treasuries would demand a hefty risk premium, potentially causing the government’s interest payments to explode."
Jun 9th 2024
EXTRACT: "An all-too-familiar specter is haunting Europe, one that reliably appears every five years. As citizens head to the polls to elect a new European Parliament, observers are once again asking whether far-right anti-European parties will gain ground and unite to destroy the European Union from within. To be sure, skeptics of this doomsday scenario have always argued that the far right will remain divided, because nationalist internationalism is a contradiction in terms. But it is more likely that specific policy disagreements – mainly over the Ukraine war – and drastically diverging political strategies will prevent Europe’s various far-right parties from forming a 'supergroup.' ”
Jun 9th 2024
EXTRACT: "While the dreadful legacy of his Conservative predecessors – the morally vacuous Johnson and the reckless Liz Truss – would make it extremely difficult for Sunak to offer a credible vision of a better future, many of his current problems are self-inflicted. For example, he supported Johnson’s bid for the Conservative leadership, a decision that reflects poorly on his judgment. Sunak has also been a Euroskeptic since he was a schoolboy and was an early supporter of Brexit."
Jun 8th 2024
EXTRACTS: "Why are so many young people attracted to far-right politics? Polls show that 36% of French people aged 18-24 support Marine Le Pen’s National Rally, while roughly 31% in the Netherlands back Geert Wilders’s nationalist, anti-immigration ..... 26% of Americans aged 18-29 prefer former US President Donald Trump over the incumbent Joe Biden." ---- "Center-left parties had become increasingly associated with urban elites who benefited from a globalized economy in which immigrants provided cheap labor and well-educated cosmopolitans could seek financial profit or intellectual stimulation wherever they desired." ---- "Trump does not have to convince many young people to vote for him. If enough of them refuse to vote for Biden, either because he is too old, too conservative, or too pro-Israel, Trump could win November’s presidential election. If elected, he will continue to shatter the norms and wreck the institutions that allow democracy to function."
Apr 13th 2024
EXTRACT: "That said, even if Europe were to improve its deterrence capabilities, it would be unwise to assume that leaders necessarily make rational decisions. In her 1984 book The March of Folly, historian Barbara Tuchman observes that political leaders frequently act against their own interests. America’s disastrous wars in the Middle East, the Soviet Union’s ill-fated campaign in Afghanistan, and the ongoing war of blind hatred between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, with its potential to escalate into a larger regional conflict, are prime examples of such missteps. As Tuchman notes, the march of folly is never-ending. That is precisely why Europe must prepare itself for an era of heightened vigilance."
Apr 13th 2024
EXTRACTS: " Nathan Cofnas is a research fellow in the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Cambridge. His research is supported by a grant from the Leverhulme Trust. He is also a college research associate at Emmanuel College. Working at the intersection of science and philosophy, he has published several papers in leading peer-reviewed journals. He also writes popular articles and posts on Substack. In January, Cofnas published a post called “Why We Need to Talk about the Right’s Stupidity Problem.” No one at Cambridge seems to have been bothered by his argument that people on the political right have, on average, lower intelligence than those on the left." ---- "The academic world will be watching what happens. Were the University of Cambridge to dismiss Cofnas, it would sound a warning to students and academics everywhere: when it comes to controversial topics, even the world’s most renowned universities can no longer be relied upon to stand by their commitment to defend freedom of thought and discussion."
Apr 13th 2024
EXTRACTS: "Word has been sent down from on high that there is room for only “good stories of China.” Anyone who raises questions about problems, or even challenges, faces exclusion from the public sessions. That was certainly true for me." ----- " But my admiration for the Chinese people and the extraordinary transformation of China’s economy over the past 45 years persists. I still disagree with the consensus view in the West that the Chinese miracle was always doomed to fail. Moreover, I remain highly critical of America’s virulent Sinophobia, while maintaining the view that China faces serious structural growth challenges. And I continue to believe that US-China codependency offers a recipe for mutually beneficial conflict resolution. My agenda remains analytically driven, not politically motivated."
Apr 11th 2024
EXTRACTS: "The insurrection began just after 8 p.m. on November 8, 1923, when Hitler and his followers burst into a political rally and held the crowd hostage. ---- The Nazi attempt to seize power ended the following morning, ---- After two and a half days in hiding, Germany’s most wanted man was discovered ----- Hitler was charged with treason, and his trial began on February 26, 1924. ---- .....the judge, having found Hitler guilty, imposed the minimum sentence....That miscarriage of justice was facilitated by the trial’s location in the anti-democratic south, and by the role of the presiding judge, Georg Neithardt, a conservative who was happy to allow Hitler to use his court as a platform to attack the Republic. ----- Like Hitler in 1924, Trump is using the courtroom as a stage on which to present himself as the victim, arguing that a crooked 'deep state' is out to get him."
Apr 9th 2024
EXTRACTS: "If Kennedy’s emphasis on healing suggests someone who has been through “recovery,” that is because he has. Following the trauma of losing both his father and his uncle to assassins’ bullets, Kennedy battled, and ultimately overcame, an addiction to heroin. Like Kennedy, Shanahan also appears to be channeling personal affliction. She describes grappling with infertility, as well as the difficulties associated with raising her five-year-old daughter, Echo, who suffers from autism," ----- "Armed with paranoid conspiracy theories about America’s descent into chronic sickness, loneliness, and depression, Kennedy has heedlessly spread lies about the putative dangers of life-saving vaccines while mouthing platitudes about resilience and healing. To all appearances, he remains caught in a twisted fantasy that he just might be the one who will realize his father’s idealistic dreams of a better America."
Mar 18th 2024
EXTRACT: "....the UK’s current economic woes – falling exports, slowing growth, low productivity, high taxes, and strained public finances – underscore the urgency of confronting Brexit’s catastrophic consequences."
Mar 18th 2024
EXTRACTS: Most significant of all, Russia’s Black Sea fleet has suffered significant losses over the past two years. As a result of these Ukrainian successes, the Kremlin decided to relocate the Black Sea fleet from Sevastopol to Novorossiysk on the Russian mainland. Compare that with the situation prior to the annexation of Crimea in 2014 when Russia had a secure lease on the naval base of Sevastopol until 2042." --- "Ukrainian efforts have clearly demonstrated, however, that the Kremlin’s, and Putin’s personal, commitment may not be enough to secure Russia’s hold forever. Kyiv’s western partners would do well to remember that among the spreading gloom over the trajectory of the war."
Mar 8th 2024
EXTRACT: "As the saying goes, 'It’s the economy, stupid.' Trump’s proposed economic-policy agenda is now the greatest threat to economies and markets around the world."