The Wagner Rebellion: The Beginning of the End for Vladimir Putin
Throughout Vladimir Putin’s 23-year reign as President, he has always been seen as having an iron grip over those around him. However, the recent Wagner Rebellion seemed to indicate that this grip has deteriorated. The Wagner rebellion took place on June 23 and 24, 2023. It is one of the most significant events in recent history, and its consequences could be significant.
Recap
Since the onset of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner mercenary group fighting alongside the Russian army, has consistently launched public and aggressive attacks against the Russian military command, specifically targeting Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of General Staff Valeri Gerasimov. Prigozhin has accused them of incompetence, betrayal, and dishonesty in their execution of Russian operations in Ukraine. During the battle of Bakhmut, where the Wagner Group fought at the front lines, they emerged victorious but greatly depleted after months of combat and significant casualties. Throughout this, Prigozhin continuously blamed the Russian army for withholding ammunition from his group and produced multiple videos wherein he insulted the Russian commanders.
On June 10, 2023, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu ordered all militias to sign contracts and integrate into regular Russian forces by July 1, for reasons of “military efficiency”. In response, Prigozhin retorted that "Wagner will not sign any contracts with Shoigu".
On June 23, Prigozhin accused the Russian army of striking their fighters' camps behind the Ukrainian front, resulting in a "significant number of casualties." On the same day, Prigozhin gave a lengthy interview disputing all the arguments Russia had used for years to justify the invasion of Ukraine. He claimed that Ukraine had not bombed civilians in the Donbas for eight years, that the Minister of Defense had misled the public and Putin by claiming that Ukraine and NATO planned to attack Russia, that Zelensky was willing to make any agreement to end the war in the Donbass when he became President, and that the Russian administration had plundered the Donbass. He also questioned the accuracy of the reported number of Russian soldiers killed in the war, suggesting that the actual number was much higher, and criticized the failure to capture Kyiv at the start of the war.
After almost a year of constant tension, insults, and confrontations, Prigozhin took action.
On the night of June 23-24, Prigozhin announced that he had entered Russia with his troops with the intention of overthrowing the military command with a “March for Justice”'. He declared that his 25,000 men were "ready to die to liberate the Russian people" and "restore order in the country." In the morning, the Wagner Group took control of Rostov-on-Don, a city with over a million inhabitants near the Donbass region, and seized the Russian army headquarters. The capture of the town occurred without resistance, and some of the local population even cheered the mercenaries.
On the morning of June 24, Vladimir Putin made a televised statement condemning the betrayal, promising to punish the traitors, and warning of the specter of civil war. Prigozhin responded that his fighters would not surrender.
A second Wagner unit took control of all military installations in the town of Voronezh, located 500 km from Moscow. The Wagner troops then proceeded along the M-4 highway connecting Rostov, Voronezh, and Moscow. The Russian authorities closed the highway to traffic and dug trenches to prevent the Wagner column from approaching the capital. Simultaneously, Russian forces organized the defense of the city in preparation for battle.
However, just as it seemed that a bloodbath for control of the capital was inevitable, Yevgeny Prigozhin ordered his troops to halt their march towards Moscow and withdraw to their bases. An agreement was reached between the head of Wagner and Vladimir Putin, through the intermediary of the Belarusian President, Alexander Lukashenko. Prigozhin most likely lacked the manpower to seize Moscow, and Putin lacked the military resources to crush Wagner's forces quickly. This confrontation would have likely prolonged, leading to a civil war, and in time, the collapse of the front in Ukraine, and ultimately a risk of disintegration of the Russian Federation. Such a scenario would have been unfavorable for all parties involved, it was in everyone's interest to negotiate. As part of the agreement to end the coup, it was decided that the legal charges against Prigozhin and his men would be dismissed, the group would not be disbanded, and Prigozhin himself would be sent into exile in Belarus. As a result, the mercenaries returned to Ukraine, leaving the town of Rostov-on-Don amidst cheers from the local population. As abruptly as it seemingly started, the Wagner rebellion came to a close.
Vladimir Putin: Humiliated and Weakened
Until February 2022, the whole world believed that Vladimir Putin had forged an army to match his ambitions. An authoritarian leader with the world’s 2nd largest army. Despite these assumptions, his army in Ukraine is faltering and his control over other authority figures appears weak.
Vladimir Putin had previously announced that he would punish the traitors who had committed this rebellion. For him, treason is the worst crime of all, unforgivable. He, who had built up the image of a charismatic, strong, unwavering, and ruthless leader over two decades, had no choice but to yield and drop the charges against those who had committed the worst affront anyone has ever made to him. Wagner's soldiers constitute an important mass of men he cannot do without in his war in Ukraine.
Putin's passivity during this rebellion was surprising. He allowed Prigozhin to take control of Rostov-on-Don, a city with over one million inhabitants and the strategic command center for the war in Ukraine. Moreover, he permitted Prigozhin to advance towards Moscow with his tanks before the world’s astonished eyes. At the same time, Moscow began barricading itself, digging trenches in the asphalt. Eventually, Belarusian President Lukashenko, whom many consider to be subordinate to Putin, intervened to resolve the conflict. This passivity aligns with the repeated invasions of pro-Ukraine Russian opponents in the Russian oblasts bordering Ukraine, which Putin has failed to control yet.
Beyond Putin's passivity, the most striking aspect was the inaction of his army. Except for a few downed aircrafts, Wagner's mercenaries faced no fighting or resistance over the hundreds of kilometers they covered. They even took the time to take photos, shake hands, and receive food and drinks. The sight of the crowd in Rostov-on-Don cheering on Wagner, along with the general passivity of the population and soldiers who did not rise to support and defend their President, was unexpected.
However, this rebellion could largely have been avoided if Putin had acted several months prior, to settle the dispute between Prigozhin and his Defense Minister Shoigu instead of remaining passive. Furthermore, the U.S Intelligence were informed weeks in advance of Prigozhin's preparations for the rebellion, while he and his intelligence services failed to anticipate such a feat.
After granting amnesty to the Wagner Group and exiling its leader to Belarus, the Kremlin announced that the mercenaries would be based there and continue their operations in Africa, far from Russia, where they could still be useful to those in power. As for Prigozhin, despite appearing to get off scot-free, it seems that he will not escape so easily, as he is still under investigation despite the Kremlin's promise to drop the charges. There is little doubt that such an affront to President Putin will not go unpunished. If 12 to 20 years of imprisonment is a possibility for armed insurrection, it is likely that Prigozhin may have sealed his own sentence by not following through with his coup d'État. Allowing such a crime to go unpunished would be a significant sign of weakness, something Putin can no longer afford.
On June 26, Vladimir Putin gave his first televised speech since the rebellion, aiming to reassert himself as the leader of the Russian nation. Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov announced that the speech would "without exaggeration, determine the fate of Russia", but it was seemingly devoid of substantial meaning. In a five minute speech, he announced that those who have led the rebellion would be prosecuted and that the others had the choice of joining the Russian army, going to the new Wagner camps in Belarus, or returning home as civilians. He thanked the Wagner Group for their “patriotism” and for stopping short of shedding Russian blood. He also expressed gratitude to the Russian people for rising up, which never occurred.
This displays a serious lack of leadership during a major crisis in Russia. This disappointment was expressed on Russian military Telegram channels, with, notably, Igor Girkin commenting: "It's been a long time since I've seen anything so pathetic from someone who even remotely resembles the President. [...] The confusion continues".
Putin’s Regime Cracked
Authoritarian regimes are invariably based on a sense of invulnerability: the invulnerability of the state and the invulnerability of its leader. Russia is no different in this regard, and yet this myth has now been challenged by a man who is symptomatic of the Putin regime: a criminal turned oligarch turned warlord – Yevgeny Prigozhin.
For over two decades, the foundation of the Putin regime has rested upon a Russian social contract centered around one core principle: stability. Stability, as the pillar of society, has allowed the government to establish its legitimacy among the general public, ensuring that Russians would never have to endure the crises of the 1990s again. Despite corruption, oligarchy, elites enriching themselves at the expense of the people, and the absence of democracy and certain fundamental human rights, as long as there is economic and political stability, the regime has nothing to fear from a population rendered apathetic. Only the oligarchs matter. As long as the economy remains stable and they can amass wealth through the unequal distribution of resources, they will be loyal.
However, this stability suffered a major blow with the regime's decision to invade its Ukrainian neighbor. Power has become even more centralized and hardened. Sanctions and the severing of trade relations with Western countries have had a significant impact on Russian society. The country's military power has been questioned, especially due to the failure to capture Kyiv, and the forced military mobilization to alleviate the tens of thousands of deaths.
Yevgeny Prigozhin's questioning of the military decision-makers has probably played a significant role for months. As the head of the Wagner Group, seen as heroes for their capture of Bakhmut and therefore considered untouchable because (until now) indispensable, no one else in the Russian society would have been able to criticize the ruling power as vehemently without facing consequences. Prigozhin’s release of his video in which he exposes all the lies that the Russian authorities have been telling for years to justify their war in Ukraine, is a direct challenge to those in power. Depending on developments on the front and if a successful Ukrainian counter-offensive occurs in the weeks to come, this could have a serious impact on the Russian population.
Max Weber's concept of the state's monopoly on legitimate force does not exist in Vladimir Putin's Russia. The monopoly of legitimate violence is the state's ability to convince people that it is the one who sets the rules, uses force, and punishes by force. Russian society, being de facto an administrative-mafia oligarchy, implies an oligopoly of the use of force.
This oligopoly is characterized by a multitude of armed forces, sometimes in competition with each other, including the regular army, the GRU, the FSB, the SVR, the FSO and the National Guard. In addition to these, there are personal armies (Wagner, Kadyrov, etc.), governors' armies, and even large private groups like Gazprom also have armed forces. Any oligarch who gets a blank check from the government can buy an armed force, and there are reportedly 27 of them. The armed forces in Russia are so numerous that they form a balance, neutralizing each other, which has always been controlled. But this balance was broken for the first time by the Wagner rebellion.
The fact that Prigozhin was able to enter Rostov-on-Don without a hitch calls into question the legitimacy of the Russian state embodied by Vladimir Putin and raises the question of "who runs this city?". As the city is close to the Donbass, Wagner's presence at the front gives them an aura among the troops who fought alongside them, in addition to being regarded as heroes by the Russian population. And yet, despite the factPutin and the FSB considered Prigozhin an absolute traitor to the Russian nation and people, no one really tried to stop him.
The weakness of Russia's regular army in Ukraine has given a certain importance and prestige to the private armies engaged there. The Wagner Group, repudiated in the West for its brutality and crimes, to the point of being classified as a terrorist group, is almost venerated in Russia for its military achievements. This is why the Russian government wishes to regulate private mercenary groups by forcing them to sign contracts with the Minister of Defense after creating a system to encourage them, they have become too powerful.
Russia's illusion of unity behind its President has vanished. No matter how much the Kremlin's propaganda reaffirms that the Russian army and its people made it possible to stop the rebellion, everyone, and especially the Russians, saw that it wasn't. The rebellion eroded Vladimir Putin's support base in ultranationalist circles.
While Wagner has opened a Pandora's box of criticism and questioning of power and the regime, the country is in the midst of such a critical and volatile moment, and the chain of political mistakes and weaknesses reflected by Putin could spur some people into action.
This is why positive results from the Ukrainian counter-offensive could prove critical for the cracked Putin regime. The Russian government has allowed the management of its war to be contested and certain warlords to put themselves forward, even to the point of challenging the government. Alone, Wagner probably didn't have the necessary means to seize power. But if power appeared weak and began to waver in the storm it had created, coalitions could be formed. A war for the throne in a country with 6,000 nuclear warheads.