The Prigozhin Affair – Analysis & Opinion
What really happened – and the potential outcomes
By Chris Devonshire-Ellis
This weekend’s attempted ‘March to Moscow’ by the Russian militia Wagner Group, led by Yevgeny Prigozhin, has spectacularly failed – been a complete victory – or a damp squib – depending upon which views one holds. It’s fairly safe to say that the Western Russophobe academia – all commenting externally from Russia – are spinning it as a loss for President Putin and a gain for Kiev. But these are dangerous views.
Essentially, Prigozhin was on a march to save his own skin. Having stepped out of line one too many times, and especially his ultimate criticism of President Putin, including the unwise statement “Tomorrow we will have a new President”, Prigozhin was ultimately going to be looking for a deal. He could dress it up as a patriotic ‘deed for good’ as ‘no Russian blood will be spilled’ in turning his army around, but he knew he’d lost support when President Putin’s private aircraft departed Vnukovo airport (10 minutes from my summer Dacha) to spend his usual weekend at the State Dacha, a few hundred km north at Valdai. It meant Putin wasn’t going to deal with him and that a subordinate would. The West dressed that up, partially as Putin running away. They were wrong.
It actually meant that Prigozhin now lacked Russian Presidential and Military support and was deemed insufficiently important to warrant a personal meeting. The subordinate deemed competent enough to deal with Prigozhin instead, was the Belarussian President, Alexander Lukashenko.
But Prigozhin’s ‘march’ was never about an attempted coup, although some viewed it as such – the China-Russia Report (written neither from China nor Russia) even gave Prigozhin a 10% chance of becoming President, which is zanily laughable if not immediately depressing.
Rather, Prigozhin knew his time was up and negotiated his way out of a very serious situation. Why would Prigozhin march to Moscow? Apparently because the Russian military had bombed his own troops on the frontlines with Ukraine – something that seems somewhat unlikely, and that the Russian military denied – although ‘friendly fire’ is a possibility.
No – Prigozhin marched to Moscow because he had simply run out of money to fund his army. It was a ‘march to Moscow’ or face a mutiny from his own men. Whether that was engineered by Putin – whose FSB uncovered millions of dollars in cash from the Wagner Groups St. Petersburg offices – acknowledged by Prigozhin as soldiering wages – is a moot point. Another issue to consider is that neither Prigozhin – nor his men – have any ideological differences with the Russian government. This was not 1917, and was never, ever going to be a coup. It was really, and only, about money.
Shorn – either through theft, political maneuvering, or simply running out of cash – Prigozhin was effectively running away from Wagner. His time was up, and he knew it. The only way out – and a brave, potentially suicidal one – was to march to Moscow and buy time. Which is what happened. The fact that Prigozhin was subsequently exiled to Belarus additionally points to this strategy. So, what are the outcomes of this strange ‘coup that never was’ that got everyone so excited?
Well for a start, it’s not bad for Putin and good for Ukraine. In fact, it’s quite the opposite.
Despite the Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky, and numerous other Western commentators describing the incident as the start of a Russian ‘civil war’ they completely missed the underlying trends. (Actually, it was civil in a way, as Prigozhin and Lukashenko sat down for a vodka to discuss the route out of the situation). This is what has actually happened, and the implications:
The Wagner Group are now under Russian Military Command
Prigozhin had become too much of a wild card, and although adept – through some fairly brutal tactics – of keeping his men subservient, his outbursts against the Kremlin’s military tactics were becoming irritating and diversionary. The Wagner army is an offensive army, and just one part of the overall military strategy for Russia’s involvement with Ukraine – and elsewhere. Prigozhin has now lost that command, a victory in fact both for Putin and Russia’s Minister of Defence, Sergey Shoigu.
The Wagner troops are now returning to their positions – and will fall under Russian military direction, not Prigozhin’s. This will allow for far better integration, communications and ultimately effectiveness on the battlefield. It also allows Putin to keep hold of the Wagner group campaigns outside Russia, which remain on-going in Syria and a handful of African republics.
Wagner in Belarus
Prigozhin and Lukashenko go back a long way – like many of that era they have come through a great deal of hardships since the collapse of the USSR in 1991. Despite Prigozhin not having political credentials other than a rather thuggish demeanor required, but often hidden out of sight by all politicians; he and Lukashenko are long term acquaintances. The call between Putin and Lukashenko would have been something along the lines of ‘get this guy out of my face’ – and Lukashenko duly obliged.
Prigozhin will almost certainly have been offered some sweeteners – but the fact remains that he is now based in Belarus. This could also mean that Prigozhin is to be positioned partially to create a Belarus wing to Wagner as he did so successfully in Russia. Belarus has a total population of about 9.5 million – but a prison population three times higher than the European average with about 34,000 incarcerated. Depending upon the specific circumstances, that may yield between 3-6 potential battalions. If recruited within the coming weeks, that gives enough time for several months military training and preparation with them ready for action by spring 2024. That could open up a new Northern Front for Ukraine, with the distance from the Belarus border to Kiev just 530km. That, with additional Russian military support coming in would create a new, very serious situation for Kiev early next year.
A Russian Offensive dressed up as a Squabble
On the other hand, what has also occurred is that in just one weekend, a massive shift in the positioning of Russian troops has occurred, with the columns headed towards Moscow suddenly making left turns and regrouping to Russia’s south west borders, Chechen troops brought in to “settle with” Wagner in the south, and Russian army reserve units quickly moving mid-west, again to “settle” with the Wagner Group battalions there. Then, as mentioned earlier, there is Prigozhin himself, now based in Belarus to Ukraine’s north, along with several operational contingents of Wagner.
That doesn’t appear a coincidence; and could mean there was never any planned ‘mutiny’ or ‘coup’. A clue is that Prigozhin last met with Putin just two weeks ago – when everything seemed fine between them.
The repositioning of all these forces, the Russian Army with large reserves, The Chechen Force, and the Wagner Group also means that Russia is now better positioned to take an offensive to a new, far stronger phase from the Russian northeast, leaving the Ukrainians to reassess their positions in the south.
What was shown as a ‘coup’ may in fact have been anything but. In which case Putin, Lukashenko and Prigozhin are laughing through their vodka glasses at the naivety of the West, where anything that looks dodgy about Russia is immediately seized upon as a weakness. If true, the West’s Russophobia is now becoming a weakness for the West.
It also strongly suggests that in Russian terms – which Russians, although not perhaps Western ‘Russia academics’ will understand, is that the entire ruse has been taken from Stanislavsky’s ‘Method for Actors‘. In a nutshell, this calls for the progressive states of Relaxation, Concentrated Attention, Imagination, Communication, and Emotions. This is exactly what appears to have occurred as concerns the entire methodology of the weekend’s Prigozhin Affair.
Prigozhin’s Get Out Of Jail Free Card
As an aside, Prigozhin has another card left to play – he can claim Jewish heritage; and may later seek exile there. A useful guy to have around the Israeli military when facing potential battlefield stresses – as Israel permanently seems to have. Good for Israel, bad for Palestine.
China’s Position
Again, there has been much Western media speculation about China’s views on the Prigozhin incident. In fact, China’s foreign minister Qin Gang met Russian deputy foreign minister Andrei Rudenko on Sunday (June 25) in Beijing; with the two being pictured smiling and walking together after what was described as an “exchange of views on Sino-Russian relations and international and regional issues of common concern”. The reality is that China has made no official statement on the weekends events and appears little concerned.
Summary
It should be obvious by now that Russia’s President Putin – and recently the entire country – have been written off so many times by the West that the rhetoric is descending into farcical repetition and misinformation, either deliberate and/or incompetent.
US President Biden declared that economic sanctions ‘would turn the ruble into rubble’ (instead it was the world’s best performing currency in 2022) while the EU constantly assures itself that ‘the sanctions are working’ when clearly, they are not. Neither, it appears, has Ukraine’s long discussed and Western militarily boosted ‘summer offensive’ been anywhere near as productive as originally suggested, with Western media full of content concerning the superiority of their tanks. In fact, they’re nowhere to be seen.
It remains therefore unclear how long the differences between the West’s politicians and the actual on-the-ground reality can remain. What is happening however is that the democratic bird of opinions will soon be winging its way over the United States and much of the EU. 2024 will therefore be a watershed year for Ukraine as determines its future. With winter approaching, there needs to be a massive, and frankly unexpected turn-around for Kiev to be in any position to determine an outcome of its choosing.
With the US about to enter into Presidential campaigning, Biden’s chances will be hampered by a problematic economy and another unwinnable war. With Trump charging around saying he can ‘fix it with just a phone call’, inflation and interest rates remaining high, let alone his age, Biden has his work cut out to maintain his Presidency. That, ultimately, will prove more important than Ukraine’s problems. If so, there will have to be settlement negotiations between Kiev and Moscow. But my opinions on how those are likely to pan out will have to wait for another time.
But what has really come home in terms of the Prigozhin affair, is that it merits little more than an obscure footnote in the Ukraine conflict – despite Western media trying to spin it as something rather more. After all, neither Presidents Putin, nor Lukashenko, and certainly not Yevgeny Prigozhin, are in the business of trying to sell newspapers, nor attract media attention to improve advertising rates.