Putin just can't keep himself from seconds with a double dose of revenge

"In the Mafia, there is no such thing as retirement. You are either in, or you are out. And if you are out, you are dead." - Joseph Pistone, former FBI agent who infiltrated the Mafia

“Are you capable of forgiveness?”

“Yes, but not everything.”

“What can’t you forgive?”

“Betrayal” -Vladimir Putin in an interview with Andrei Kondrashov, in the film “Putin,” 2018

Like him or hate him, Evgeny Prigozhin and his sidekick, Dmitry Utkin, aka “Wagner,” had quite the run. Their coup-not-coup captured the world’s attention at the end of June until Prigozhin changed his mind, bent the knee, and repented to Putin. The world scratched its head, shrugged in bewilderment, and went ahead with unrelenting turmoil in every corner inhabited by man for the better part of the summer. No one interested in Russia, Ukraine, and the war could make heads or tails of what had transpired.

The sheer lunacy of launching the coup and then, when it looked like it had every chance of success, the even greater lunacy of unexpectedly reversing course and literally saying that he was just blowing off steam left everyone bewildered, scrambling for any shred of logic to explain Prigozhin taking his versions of “crazy” to the next level, and Putin, one of the most vindictive people alive, seemingly giving an act of blatant betrayal go unpunished. Today, thankfully, the world made sense again: the sun rose in the East, the compass pointed true North, and we could start cancelling psychiatric consultations.

All it took is Putin not being able to help himself to succumb to his most basic instinct - exacting revenge on those who betrayed him. When Prigozhin called off his March of Justice, the consensus was that he signed his own death warrant, and it was just a matter of time before the hammer would fall upon Prigozhin’s head. Putin toyed with him for political expediency, cleansing the military of potentially disloyal officers and generals, arresting his most ardent critics not only from the left but the hard right, and tightening the screws on dissent to the fullest. Today, with Prigozhin’s assassination, and it does look like an assassination as Russian anti-aircraft defences shot down his plane, Putin finally chose a side among the various clans competing for influence within the Kremlin.

Prigozhin’s death is a victory for Shoigu and the incompetent kleptocrats who call themselves officers within the dysfunctional Ministry of Defence, and this, in my opinion, is very good news for Ukraine and those who support it. It is a victory of the incompetent and the stupid, the corrupt and the merciless, from Putin all the way down through the ranks of the massive Russian bureaucracy.

Prigozhin’s death may satisfy Putin’s vindictive ego, but it will also bring more strife and discord into the already disharmonious Russian society, not to say anything of the military or the oligarchic elites. Like him or not, it is impossible to deny that Prigozhin was very popular among the Russian population if not the elites. As was General Surovikin, now stripped of his command and relegated to obscurity, as was Igor “Strelkov” Girkin, as were many of the generals and officers arrested and stripped of command, at least among the most virulent Russophiles.

Yet another martyr sacrificed on the altar of the cult of Putin is not a good look for the Kremlin nor a strong hand to play in shoring up fraying legitimacy and power. It screams of weakness. It highlights the growing sense of fear and foreboding permeating the highest echelons of power. It does not strengthen Putin, and it puts another dent in the armour of invincibility that he so laboriously crafted over the last 23 years.

Prigozhin’s death also leaves over twenty thousand well-trained soldiers seeking vengeance for Moscow to deal with. In essence, Putin may have opened a second front to the Ukraine war. While the West and Ukraine fretted about the potential threat of Wagner Group activity coming out of Belarus, it may well be now Russia that needs to worry about a potential invasion out of Belarus. Putin and Lukashenko may manage to nip this threat in the bud. However, their position will still weaken as considerable resources will have to be deployed to deal with an angry Wagner contingent exceptionally adept at killing.

The threat to the regime stemming from this assassination is palpable and recognized by the Kremlin. It already launched the propaganda machine working overtime to sell the narrative that Ukraine shot down Prigozhin’s plane in premature celebration of its Flag Day holiday. This narrative, however, even if true, does not build confidence in Putin and the Ministry of Defence. It only confirms the sense of dread that Muscovites have already been feeling with increased drone attacks on the capital: that the Ukrainian military can act with impunity on Russian territory. That, in effect, the Russian army has no effective means of protecting the capital or the country.

This growing doubt in the competence of the army and the government can not come at a worse time for Putin and his war effort. It highlights a litany of recent embarrassments and failures, such as the devaluation of the ruble, Putin’s inability to attend the BRICS summit in South Africa due to the order for his arrest, and a dubbed translation of his video address to the conference. As the government prepares to announce massive conscription in September, it is hard to imagine how all of the turmoil surrounding Putin and his circle of thieves will build confidence in the war effort and the competence of leadership and imbue Russian men to march happily to their demise.

Prigozhin’s death, whether committed by Putin or engineered by Ukraine, is a lose-lose scenario for the Kremlin. It shows desperation, weakness, and discord. It removes people who, regardless of their brutality, or perhaps, because of it, constituted the most effective fighting force that Russia could field. It is also a loss, one among many, with little gains or victories to offset it. No matter how the Kremlin spins this, and it surely will in any number of ways, it is hard to see any potential upside, either political or military. Putin has quenched his thirst for revenge, and he may also have opened the Pandora’s box of his own demise. I have always argued that the war turns on a dime, that some significant event or breakthrough will send the Russian military effort crumbing. Whether this is such an event, I can not say with certainty, but the bad news continues to pile up. By the way, August is not over yet.

 

Alexander Kabanovsky is formerly a Russia-based banker and entrepreneur. This article first appeared on his substack “Thinking Out Loud” here.