An exciting, but potentially even more perilous, future devoid of Russian President Vladimir Putin has just been hinted at. As a result, the Western world now has much more at stake in the conflict in Ukraine.
Russia’s bloody history of revolutions and coups was brought to mind by a mutinous weekend that saw mercenary head Yevgeny Prigozhin openly ridicule the Kremlin before abandoning his march on Moscow. War might redraw the geography of Europe and modern history, and efforts by the White House and its foreign partners to find out exactly what was happening highlighted the war’s volatility. A civil war that seemed imminent was ultimately avoided, at least for the time being.
It appeared that the strongman in the Kremlin would back down before a military showdown with Prigozhin and his Wagner Group. Putin’s accusation of Prigozhin’s treason and subsequent agreement to a deal that presumably allowed him to flee to exile in Belarus only hours later were the largest holes in the Russian president’s authority in a generation. There is no longer any doubt that Putin’s political existence is threatened by the conflict he unleashed to erase Ukraine from the map. The ramifications have now spread to the rest of the world.
That’s not a one-day hiccup. Former US ambassador to Ukraine John Herbst told AWN’s Christiane Amanpour, “It’s like Prigozhin is the person who looked behind the screen at the Wizard of Oz and saw the great and terrible Oz was just this little frightened man.” “This scandal will forever stain Putin’s reputation.”
For Ukraine, which seeks breakthroughs against Moscow’s already demoralised and poorly led troops in its new counteroffensive, the schisms in Moscow and between the government and Prigozhin’s Wagner Group – the only Russian fighting force that has enjoyed much recent battlefield success – may now conjure an opening. The West, which has financed and armed the country’s struggle for survival, would welcome such an outcome. Even though Putin has shown no signs of ending the war by withdrawing his forces from Ukraine, NATO leaders would welcome his departure.
There was some concern that a weak ruler, the Russian military, and warring militia leaders may spark a civil war in a country with a large nuclear weapons. Such turmoil and unrest within Russia would have far-reaching geopolitical repercussions.
The West really doesn’t support either side of the conflict that broke out over the weekend. Putin, who has revived World War II horror in Europe, who flouted international law by invading a sovereign neighbour, and who faces an arrest warrant for alleged war crimes, squared off against Prigozhin, whose men are accused of brutal human rights abuses in Ukraine, Syria, and Africa. Prigozhin has admitted to meddling in American elections and has vowed to do so again, so he is clearly not a friend of the United States.
To prevent Putin from using this as evidence of a Western plot to remove him from power, diminish Russia’s status as a global power, and reduce its area of influence, Western officials have insisted that this is an internal Russian affair. According to AWN’s Kevin Liptak, Biden called the heads of state in France, Britain, and Germany and emphasised the importance of keeping the temperature down and letting whatever was happening in Russia play out in line with his mantra to avert “World War III.”
A new Cold War-style standoff with Russia is a big foreign policy dilemma for Washington, but no one in the capital is placing bets on Putin’s rule collapsing anytime soon.
On AWN’s “State of the Union,” retired Gen. David Petraeus remarked, “I don’t think we want a country that spans 11 time zones and includes republics in the Russian Federation of many different ethnic and sectarian groupings to come apart at the seams.”
Is Putin’s downfall finally starting to take shape?” We have no idea. Were Prigozhin to have been successful, we would have been concerned that whoever took over would be even more autocratic. Is it possible for a realistic figure to assume power in Ukraine and see what a disaster the country’s current approach to dealing with Europe and the West has been? Petraeus, a former head of the CIA, was questioned.
As the saying goes, “many, many unknowns.”
Putin might be even more deadly if he were injured.
A victory for the Ukrainians in this battle has long been seen as a potential existential threat to Putin’s regime. However, theoretical speculation is one thing. If the West wants to save Ukraine, it will have to reevaluate its delicate balancing act after this weekend.
The Russian leader’s shame may prompt him to push for an even more brutal push in a war that has already cruelly harmed Ukrainian civilians. Putin’s predicament might worsen if political unrest in Russia significantly lowers morale among the country’s armed forces and causes casualties on the battlefield. After months of nuclear sabre rattling, this will further heighten concerns that the Russian leader is threatening a catastrophic escalation of the war.
If the war keeps getting worse for Russia, and if the events of the last weekend were any indication, the West may be in for yet another problem.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said Monday that political instability in a nuclear power like Russia is “not a good thing,” adding that the nuclear danger is “something that has to be taken into account.” The United States claims that Moscow’s nuclear stance has not changed.
The most effective opposition to Putin did not originate from the democratic movement that he spent years destroying, despite months of terrible losses on the battlefield and economic misery at home imposed by Western sanctions. It came from Prigozhin, a more extreme right-winger and brute than he. There were worries of a bloodbath in the streets of Moscow when another radical and ruthless war master, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, promised on Saturday to assist Putin repress the Wagner insurrection.
The inner workings of Moscow’s politics are unpredictable, since they are a bear pit populated with thuggish militia chiefs, intelligence chieftains, and oligarchs. The unexpected events of the past few days have raised concerns that Russia’s next leader would be even more unyielding and difficult for the West to deal with than Putin. The Internet Research Agency, a troll farm that Russia employed to spread disinformation across social media in a bid to influence the 2016 presidential election, was one of Prigozhin’s pet projects.
“We’re all maybe excited to see that Putin’s hold on power is shakier and the state is more fragile than we thought,” said Robert English, an expert in Russia and eastern Europe who directs the School of International Relations at the University of Southern California.
A populist from the right who appeals to the same anti-elite, anti-corrupt instincts but has brutal dictatorial tendencies of their own, as English put it, is more likely to succeed Putin than a liberal like Alexei Navalny or these other liberal critics of Putin.
