Glimpses of a Different Russia

Welcome back. Western government analysts, independent experts and media commentators have been under pressure all week to predict what will happen in Russia after Yevgeny Prigozhin’s aborted coup. But the truth is, we don’t know – a point that struck me when I remembered a joke I was told in Moscow in the 1980s, during the final years of the Soviet Union. I’m at tony.barber@ft.com.

According to this joke, one Russian asks another: “What’s coming?” Answer: “I know what is going to happen, but I don’t know what will happen before it comes.”

In today’s context, this joke reflects the fact that the reign of Vladimir Putin will one day end. What we cannot know – and what is more relevant to Western policy makers – is the direction events will take before they happen.

From the publicly available comments on Russia that I sampled this week, I would like to select five topics. These are: what Prigozhin’s rebellion tells us about the strengths and weaknesses of Putin’s system of governance; the risk of disintegration of the Russian state; impact on the war in Ukraine; Perspectives on Russian-Chinese relations; And the role of Belarus.

Putin’s Weaknesses

The consensus view is that Prigozhin’s rebellion exposed serious weaknesses in Putin’s highly personal style of governance. FT’s Moscow bureau chief Max Seddon cited a Russian oligarch who has known the president since the 1990s:

No doubt this is a great insult to Putin. , , Thousands of people are moving from Rostov to Moscow almost without resistance, and no one can do anything.

In an article for the Washington-based Center for European Policy Analysis, Irina Borogan and Andrei Soldatov extend this idea,

Prigozhin’s raid on Rostov-on-Don was so outrageous and brazen that it reminded Russians of the late 1990s and early 2000s, when Chechen terrorists stormed hospitals, towns and schools, taking hostages and fleeing the Kremlin. In exchange for the civilians demanded an end to the war. ‘ lives.

Many commentators said that for the first time in Putin’s 23-year rule, Russians had a glimpse of a future without him. Sam Green, Professor of Russian Politics at King’s College London, Tweeted,

The greatest threat to Putin at this point is not from Prigozhin, but from the possibility that these events break the seal on the public consensus that there is no alternative to Putin.

Andrei Kolesnikov of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center wrote In The New York Times:

Prigozhin offered the Russians a fleeting glimpse of an alternate future, and in doing so, gave the Russians more reason to doubt his leadership. Is Putin really the all-powerful, tsar-like figure they thought he was?

power of putin

However, this is not the complete picture. Some wise heads warn that Putin is by no means finished – at least not yet.

My colleague Dan Dombey, former head of the FT bureau in Turkey, reminded me this week that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan not only survived a coup attempt in 2016, but also brutally attacked real and imagined opponents – and he’s still in charge today. Are. It seems that Putin is already striking back.

For these reasons, I recommend this interview In Foreign Affairs magazine with Stepan Kotkin, a prominent historian of the Soviet Union. He says:

I have long called the Putin regime “hollow yet strong”. It remained viable as long as there was no political alternative.

However, echoing the comments of Green and Kolesnikov, Kotkin says:

Now, we can see how hollow the rule is. Putin has unwittingly started a stress test of his regime. It had already lost its mystique with the aggression against Ukraine. Mystique, once lost, is nearly impossible to retrieve.

Will Russia break up?

As I wrote in this newsletter exactly a year ago, Putin’s failed war in Ukraine has led to much speculation, especially among conservatives in the US and central and eastern Europe, that Russia could break up because of the tensions.

Prigozhin’s rebellion has breathed new life into this thinking. Here’s Ana Palacio, former Spanish foreign minister, Writing for Social Europe,

Putin could be removed from power, leaving a fractured Russia where various “warlords” compete for power – including control of the world’s largest nuclear arsenal.

Palacio’s article emphasizes the dangers of Russian dismemberment. but in this commentJean-Dominique Giuliani, president of the Brussels-based Robert Schumann Foundation, suggests that there may be an upside:

The end of the Russian Federation would be the culmination of a long process of decolonization that began in 1991, marking the de facto end of the Tsarist era, a prolonged period by communist dictatorships that survived only by conquest.

Personally, I think Giuliani has exaggerated the likelihood that autonomous regions such as Buryatia, Dagestan, Tatarstan and Tuva could carve out viable independent states next to fragmented Russia, fueled by grudge nationalists and more Will be full of benevolent but perplexed citizens.

Still, it was revealing that Putin used the word in his condemnation of Prigozhin. smutaa sign towards troubled times In the early 17th century, the Russian state disintegrated under the pressure of competing factions in Moscow and foreign wars.

Putin may be playing on ordinary Russians’ fears of violent incarceration. But to me his language seemed full of authentic anger at the prospect of the collapse of the state, however remote it may be.

Security Guarantee for Ukraine

Is Russian Unrest Good or Bad for Ukraine? The much-anticipated Ukrainian counter-offensive has so far not achieved the scale of success that President Volodymyr Zelensky and his military commanders had hoped for.

but commentators like Mikhail Komin Argue that Prigozhin’s rebellion was exposed “The scale of the crisis within the Russian armed forces, which are frustrated by frequent failures and are war-weary”.

So this may be the right time for the US and its allies to double down on their military and financial support for Ukraine. Judy Dempsey of Carnegie Europe adds that Western governments should Increase Security Guarantee to Kiev at the upcoming NATO summit in Lithuania.

However, the US – which is the key decision maker – is wary of going too far too soon.

China and Russia: The Limit of “No Limit” Friendship?

How China views Prigozhin’s rebellion and Putin’s response is worth an entire newsletter in itself. A good, pithy analysis came out this twitter thread From Joseph Torrigian of American University in Washington. He says:

The Chinese believe Putin is still Russia’s best chance for stability and see supporting him as one of the main foundations of the relationship. Some Chinese commentators have said that Putin emerged victorious sooner and with less bloodshed.

On the other hand, Beijing may be of the view that Putin and his entourage really need to get their house in order. A small number of Chinese scholars are skeptical about where the so-called “no-border” friendship with Russia is taking their country, with a suggestion Beijing has to be careful that the Kremlin does not drag it into the quagmire of war.

I would add that China’s perception of the US as its main long-term international rival means that Beijing has a keen interest in keeping Russia on its side.

Lukashenko: ‘For 30 minutes we talked obscenely’

And similarly for Belarus, whose dictator, Alexander Lukashenko (profiled here in the FT), played a role in smoothing over the confrontation between Putin and Prigozhin.

The Economist magazine published on Monday A Comment Under the headline: “Alexander Lukashenko is the most obvious beneficiary of Wagner’s donations.”

I must say that I think this is completely wrong, and to be fair the article quotes a Ukrainian official as saying that Lukashenko’s role is greatly exaggerated:

“He was asked to be a moderator, and he fell in line.”

However, why not read what Lukashenko said about all this? This copyProvided by the Meduza News website, will remain an item for historians through the ages.

Lukashenko said that, while Putin had told him that he could not capture Prigozhin when the mercenary chief was in Rostov, he himself successfully contacted the rebel less than an hour later.

“For the first 30 minutes we only talked obscenities,” Lukashenko said. Well, this is definitely true.

“We’re going to march on Moscow!” He quoted Prigozhin. Then: “I told him, ‘They’ll crush you like a worm.'”

And so the dictator pacified Prigozhin and covered himself in glory – or not. For a more serious perspective, read Thomas Graham, a distinguished former US diplomat in Moscow, in the New York Times:

The fact is that Lukashenko is not an independent actor but an instrument of Kremlin policy, and he has been for years.

more on this topic

What Prigozhin’s half-hearted “coup” could mean for Putin’s regime interview in the new yorker Political analysis firm R. With Tatiana Stanovaya, Founder and Head of Politik

Tony’s Pick for the Week