The Rise and Fall of a Russian Oligarch
The Kremlin leadership has acted decisively to meet the threat of an armed insurrection by the Russian oligarch and self-styled ‘founder’ of Wagner Group of military contractors, Yevgeny Prigozhin.
In a series of videos released on Friday, Prigozhin alleged that the Russian government’s justifications for military intervention in Ukraine were based on lies. He accused the Russian Defence Ministry under minister Sergei Shoigu of “trying to deceive society and the president and tell us how there was crazy aggression from Ukraine and that they were planning to attack us with the whole of NATO.” He claimed that regular Russian armed forces had launched missile strikes against Wagner forces, killing a “huge” number.
Prigozhin declared: “The council of commanders of PMC Wagner has made a decision – the evil that the military leadership of the country brings must be stopped.” He vowed to march on Moscow and hold those responsible to account.
The Federal Security Service or FSB (formerly the KGB) has called it “an armed rebellion”; Wagner’s headquarters in St. Petersburg has been sealed; Prosecutor General’s Office said “this crime is punishable by imprisonment for a term of 12 to 20 years.”
In an address to the nation at 10.00 am Moscow time on Saturday, President Vladimir Putin strongly condemned the developments describing it as “an armed mutiny” and calling for the “consolidation of all forces.” Putin drew a parallel with the insurrection in Petrograd (St. Petersburg) in February 1917 that led to the Bolshevik Revolution and a protracted civil war with large-scale western military intervention, including the United States, “while all sorts of political adventurers and foreign forces profited from the situation by tearing the country apart to divide it.”
He promised, “Decisive actions will also be taken to stabilise the situation in Rostov-on-Don (700 kms south of Moscow where Prigozhin is located with Wagner fighters.) It remains difficult, the work of civil and military authorities is actually blocked.”
Putin vowed that those “who organised and prepared a military mutiny, who took up arms against his comrades – betrayed Russia,” will be punished. Significantly, Putin never once mentioned Prigozhin’s name.
This face-off has been in the making for several months and is traceable to tensions in the working relations between the Wagner forces and the Russian ministry of defence, Prigozhin’s personal antipathy towards Defence Minister Shoigu and the Russian top brass, his bloated ego and overvaulting political ambition, and, most certainly, his business interests.
Prigozhin has crossed the red line that Putin famously drew right at the beginning of his rule in the Kremlin in the summer of 2000 in a historic meeting with 21 of the richest men in Russia — the rapacious “oligarchs,” as Russians had come to derisively call them — who had risen seemingly out of nowhere, amassing spectacular fortunes as the country around them descended into chaos through shady deals, outright corruption, and even murder and had seized control of much of Russia’s economy, and, increasingly, its fledgling democracy. At the closed-door meeting, Putin told them, face to face, who was really in charge in Russia.
Putin offered the oligarchs a deal: ‘Bend to the Russian state’s authority, stay out of the way of Russia’s governance or domestic politics, and you can keep your mansions, super-yachts, private jets, and multibillion-dollar corporations.’ In the coming years, those oligarchs who reneged on this deal paid a heavy price. Mikhail Khodorkovsky, worth $15 billion, and once ranked 16th on Forbes list of billionaires, is the most celebrated case, who harboured political ambition and now lives in exile in the US, lavishly funding American think tanks and Russophobic activists all across the western world, spewing venom against Putin.
But, on the other hand, the “loyalists” who stayed back went on to became filthy rich and live off the fat of the land like nobody’s business. Prigozhin, a man of humble origin, stayed back to amass great wealth. In a way, he symbolises all that has gone so terribly wrong with Russia’s post-Soviet reincarnation.
However, the dividing line is often blurred as even those who stayed back took care to keep a significant part of their loot in western countries, in bank vaults or as moveable and immoveable assets beyond the reach of Russian law. Which means, the oligarchs are also highly vulnerable to Western blackmail. Unsurprisingly, the western capitals fancy that the oligarchs could lend a hand to undermine the Kremlin regime from within or create a social implosion to destabilise Russia and throw into disarray its war effort in Ukraine.
Prigozhin’s antecedents are anybody’s guess. But it is entirely conceivable that this man who is credited with extra-large influence in the Kremlin’s corridors of power has been in the cross-hairs of the western intelligence. Prigozhin is worth at least $1.2 billion in personal wealth.
Prigozhin was also a trailblazer of sorts, having got into the hugely lucrative profession of managing a quasi-state company of mercenaries who are trained and equipped to act as military contractors in hotspots abroad in countries where Russia has vital interests commercially, politically or militarily.
Moscow is no longer in the Soviet-era business of promoting national liberation movements. But it also cannot be impervious to the regime changes that Russia’s main western opponents routinely promote to serve their geopolitical interests in the so-called Global South (or in the ex-Soviet republics.) Thus, Russia has found an ingenious Third Way by creating a military wing somewhat fashioned after the notorious French Foreign League. The Wagner Group has proved to be extremely effective in Sahel region and elsewhere in Africa as a provider of security for the established governments. The erstwhile colonial powers no longer have a field day in dictating terms to the African governments.
Suffice to say, the taming of Prigozhin has proved to be difficult, although Russian intelligence would have been aware that western intelligence was in touch with him. Indeed, his increasingly defiant public posturing was becoming a serious distraction for the Kremlin. One possibility is that Russian intelligence gave him a long rope to hang himself. Equally, Kremlin’s preference would have been to pacify and co-opt him in the war effort. Putin even met him.
In his address to the nation, Putin stopped short of alleging any “foreign hand” in the current developments, and put his finger on “Excessive ambitions and personal interests [having] led to treason.” But, rather explicitly — more than once — Putin also highlighted that it will be foreign powers inimical toward Russia who are the ultimate beneficiaries of Prigozhin’s activity.
Significantly, the FSB has directly accused Prigozhin of treason, which could only have been on the basis of intelligence inputs and with Putin’s approval. The fact that Prigozhin’s mutiny comes bang in the middle of the Ukrainian offensive when the war is nearing a tipping point in Russia’s favour must also be carefully weighed in.
In the final analysis, this macabre attempt at mutiny won’t fly. Oligarchs are a detested lot in the Russian opinion. Any western hopes of staging an insurrection in Russia and a regime change under a renegade oligarch’s banner will be an absurd idea, to say the least.
The immediate challenge will be to isolate Prigozhin and his hardcore associates from the bulk of Wagner fighters. Putin has praised the Wagner fighters’ contribution in Ukraine war. The charismatic Russian military commander in Ukraine, General Sergey Surovikin has made a public appeal to the Wagner troops to submit to the authorities “before it is too late,” return to their barracks, and address their grievances peacefully. But in a near term, a systemic approach is also needed to integrate Wagner Group, which after all proved its worth every bit in the prolonged and brutal war of attrition in Bakhmut in the Donbass.
(M.K. Bhadrakumar is a former Indian diplomat. Courtesy: Indian Punchline, Bhadrakumar’s blog.)
FSB Spooked the CIA on Prigozhin Coup
The CNN, followed by the New York Times, broke the story on Sunday that the US and western intelligence were indeed aware of the failed coup attempt on Friday night by Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Wagner Group of Russian military contractors, “for quite some time and making preparations for such a move, including by massing weapons and ammunition.”
What we do not know is at what point Russian intelligence got wind of it. The Kremlin acted forcefully, decisively and with foresight in real time to scotch the coup attempt within hours. By Saturday evening, the foreign intelligence chief Sergey Narishkin announced that the coup attempt had failed. The Russian authorities were waiting for Prigozhin to make his move.
It is only natural that Russian intelligence kept a strong presence right inside the Wagner tent all through. Damn it, it is a war zone where Russia’s fate is hanging in the balance. The lyrics of the famous Sting song come to mind: ‘Every breath you take / And every move you make / Every bond you break / Every step you take / I’ll be watching you…’
And the Chorus sings, thereupon: ‘Oh, can’t you see / You belong to me? / How my poor heart aches / With every step you take…’
Just as the CIA or most intelligence organisations do, the FSB also psychoanalyses the remarks of their targets for profound meanings. They do that routinely and have trained analysts who do only that.
It wouldn’t have escaped the attention of Russian intelligence analysts that Prigozhin’s ranting and ravings from Donetsk from last autumn and winter began originally on the operational aspects of the Bakhmut war front in Donetsk oblast, but incrementally began acquiring political overtones, culminating finally in his incredible statement that the raison d’être of the special military operation in Ukraine since February 2022, was all baloney.
Even more strangely, this man who physically witnessed the Battle of Bakhmut, came to the bizarre conclusion that Kiev or Nato had no mala fide intentions toward Donbass or Russia.
Therefore, the ‘known known’ here is that the Russian intelligence was under instructions to be in ‘listening mode,’ give the eddies a free flow in the Battle of Bakhmut where Wagner was in the driving seat. (Interestingly, though, at some point, much to Prigozhin’s annoyance, Moscow also began deploying regular troops selectively on the Bakhmut front alongside the Wagner fighters. )
On Saturday, top US intelligence officials sprang into action to brief the media as it emerged that Russian authorities were literally waiting with a road map to squash Prigozhin’s coup attempt. Even the Chechen militia was put on standby.
The crucial element in the deal struck with Prigozhin has been that he will not be prosecuted but must simply get lost. And where else could his exile be arranged better on Planet Earth than in Belarus under the benevolent eyes of President Alexander Lukashenko?
Now, we may get to know at some point from Lukashenko, who struggles to keep secrets for long, as to when exactly would Putin have taken him into confidence on a ‘need-to-know basis.’ It strains credulity that such a complex dealmaking was possible within a clutch of hours via tortuous 3-way negotiations between Moscow, Minsk and Rostov-on-Don even as the renegade Wagner column was approaching Moscow.
An intriguing sub-plot here is that amidst all this heavy traffic, Lukashenko also negotiated with Nurusultan Nazarbayev, the former Kazakh dictator who headed a pro-western regime in Astana and was ousted from power after reigning for nearly three decades, following the failure of a similar US-backed coup attempt like Prigozhin’s in the winter of 2021-2022, which too was crushed with the help of the CSTO forces (Russian troops) led by a Russian general.
On the previous day, in fact, Putin had spoken with two Central Asian leaders — Kazakh President Jomart Tokayev and Uzbek President Shavkat Miromonovich Mirziyoyev. Did he share any crucial intelligence? In fact, both these countries have been facing western plots for regime change lately. By the way, Given Moscow’s preoccupations in Ukraine, Chinese President Xi Jinping has stepped in to take a hands-on role to consolidate the stability and security of the Central Asian region.
Clearly, something was seriously afoot in Kazakhstan, which is sandwiched between Russia and China and is the most crucial piece of real estate in geopolitical terms in Central Asia.
In all probability, this was what the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken alluded to when he told ABC on Sunday that the situation with the attempted coup in Russia “is still developing… I don’t want to speculate, and I don’t think we saw the final episode.” That said, however, Blinken has piled up a consistent record for being horribly wrong on his assessments on Russia — starting from the deathly blow the ‘sanctions from hell’ were expected to give to the Russian economy; Putin’s hold on power; Russia’s catastrophic defeat in Ukraine; Russian military’s deficiencies; Kiev’s inexorable military victory, and so on.
In this case, he has reason to feel embittered particularly because of the spectacular unity of the Russian state, political elite, media, regional and federal bureaucracy, and the military and security establishment in rallying behind Putin. Arguably, Putin’s political stature is now unchallengeable and unassailable in Russia and the Americans have to live with that reality long after Joe Biden’s departure from the scene.
Going forward
The Kremlin has adopted a very thoughtful strategy. From available details so far, it has the following five key elements:
- Principally, the top priority is to avoid bloodshed so that life moves on and the focus on the war in Ukraine, which is at a tipping point, doesn’t suffer;
- In immediate terms, get the few renegade Wagner fighters and Prigozhin to leave Rostov-on-Don and return to their camps in Lugansk;
- Clinically separate Prigozhin from the rest of Wagner Group (In fact, not a single Wagner commander or officer joined his revolt);
- Offer immunity to the bulk of the Wagner Group — except the participants in the coup, of course — and facilitate their formal integration into the defence ministry. That is, the logic behind the creation of Wagner Group by the Defence Ministry (and an unnamed top secret internal security agency) holds good still, but it will no longer be a quasi-state force, but will have a habitation and name and led by designated professional military commanders instead of free-wheeling fortune hunters like Prigozhin.)
- Get Prigozhin to leave for Belarus, which was not difficult once he realised that he should request mercy from none other than Putin (who agreed to the oligarch’s safe passage to Belarus.)
The last element is utterly fascinating. The Kremlin is extremely annoyed with Prigozhin for his seditious behaviour but is also aware — presumably on the basis of intelligence inputs — that he has been manipulated by western powers. Of course, there is going to be a price to pay. Prigozhin will never get back his towering stature as an oligarch with a personal fortune of $1.2 billion or the fabulous lifestyle he led.
But at least, the 62-year old oligarch is spared a possible twenty-year prison term. This is of a piece with Putin’s handling of oligarchs in general.
Make no mistake, Lukashenko will eventually make Prigozhin sing — sooner rather later — and the song will be transmitted live to the Kremlin. And that accounts for the great nervousness in Washington, which has raised the spectre of nuclear war, etc. to give the spin to distract attention from the CIA’s plot to destabilise Russia. The irrepressible Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov calls it a “turbulent stream of consciousness.”
To be sure, now that the CIA-MI6- Prigozhin plot has failed, out of its debris, new western narratives will be born like a Phoenix out of the ashes. And the US’ sleeping cells abroad, including in the Indian media, will parrot that narrative.
But, not for long. For, what lies ahead is the manifestation of the steely resolve of the Kremlin — and Putin himself — to seek an all-out military solution to the Ukraine crisis. Putin declared last week — most likely in anticipation of the storm brewing on the horizon — that the war will be over when no Ukrainian army will be left on the battlefield, or NATO weapons.
(M.K. Bhadrakumar is a former Indian diplomat. Courtesy: Indian Punchline, Bhadrakumar’s blog.)
