As for Russia and Wagner’s current and potential partners, a partnership with Moscow or the paramilitary militia is more than ever a very risky – indeed, an unlikely – gamble. Here are the reasons:
1. Wagner’s rebellion in Russia is a direct result of the war in Ukraine and Russian adventurism
– The attempted insurgency is the result of Russia’s imperial adventurism and decision to attack Ukraine on February 24, 2022.
– On many occasions, particularly in recent days, Prigozhin has questioned Putin’s justification for the special operation, exposing the lies, corruption, and venality of the Defence Ministry’s top leadership.
– This episode of rebellion signals a profound instability and loss of authority that could accelerate the post-Putin transition – and could also breathe new life into the war in Ukraine. While the revolt has momentarily ended, the seeds of disorder remain.
– Russian troops’ morale on the front lines will be affected, with questions about their leaders’ infallibility, questions about the relocation of an effective 25,000-strong force, temporarily disorganized supply chains, and the war’s “moral foundations” being called into question.
– The Russian people now face a major threat of disorder, violence, and chaos. She is the first victim of the unfolding events.
– In today’s fragile conditions, a Russian victory against Ukraine seems impossible.
2. Russia’s security apparatus is weak
– The Kremlin does not control the game. President Putin, humiliated and publicly manipulated, has had to turn to the Belarusian president to find a way out of the crisis.
– Russia’s private-public security model is unreliable, and its offer of partnership cannot hold.
– Military and intelligence officials and security services were unable to stop mercenaries’ advance toward Moscow, revealing the depth of its strategic weakness. The situation quickly overwhelmed the military authorities. Generals and military units have been utterly passive at best, complicit at worst in Wagner’s behaviour. Some units provided information to Wagner, and some generals engaged with Prigozhin before making a U-turn.
– Russia’s military confirms its weaknesses. Wagner did not meet any serious resistance and took over Rostov-on-Don without any difficulty (more than a million inhabitants, 10th city of the country) before continuing its progress over 600 km. Without Prigozhin’s decision to step down, the advance of the Wagner column might well have enabled him to reach Moscow on the evening of June 24.
3. Putin’s regime is beset by a number of deepening internal rifts, which will be worsening.
– For several weeks now, Prigozhin has been violently and consistently criticizing the Defense Ministry, without any public reaction from the Kremlin. Many analysts warned of the risk of losing control over this monster whose military and political ambitions grow every day. Tensions eventually erupted.
– In his June 24 speech, Putin denounced “high treason,” “stabbing in the back,” and the need “to prevent anarchy and fratricidal war.” He promised “an inevitable punishment for those who have ‘betrayed’ the country” and called on them to lay down their arms.
– Putin’s direct challenge to his rule and exposing the Russian military’s weaknesses is humiliating.
– Existing divisions have been further aggravated by this insurgency. Though they did not line up behind Prigozhin, many military authorities observed a waiting position. For their part, former Russian chief of operations in Ukraine Sergei Surovikine and deputy chief of military intelligence Vladimir Alekseyev, who were seen as Prigozhin’s allies, condemned Wagner’s factitious actions while maintaining a fuzzy position vis-à-vis the rebellion. The game of internal alliances is confused and muddled.
– In Rostov, Prigozhin was cheered by the crowd, which is a slap in the face for the Kremlin and President Putin directly.
– So, weakened from within and at the top, Russia is a weak actor. His propaganda collapsed with this armed rebellion.
4. The Russian system turns against Putin and the monster Prigozhin against its creator
– By making Wagner his “black order” and armed arm, in Ukraine and Africa, Vladimir Putin has crafted a monster that is now beyond his grasp and directly threatening him. A kind of “security Frankenstein.”
– Indeed, the armed insurgency is probably the first step in the Putin regime’s disintegration. Putin has created the “Prigozhin monster” himself; he has failed, in the eyes of the world, to regulate the rivalries within his system.
– If this humiliation discredits President Putin domestically, who bases his image on his firmness, the repercussions will also be visible on the international scene: no one trusts a power that shows signs of weakness. His isolation may increase.
– That moment of rebellion could accelerate the post-Putin transition, also giving Ukraine’s war a new lease on life.
– After Wagner, what other of the many PMCs that make up Russia’s security fabric will rebel?
– These events confirm what Machiavelli wrote in 1532 (The Prince, 1532): “What we must fear from mercenaries is their cowardice.” “Mercenary cohorts are uncertain, infidels and dangerous.”
5. Countries that rely on Wagner and Russia now face an urgent and largely predictable dilemma
– In some countries, Russian chief diplomat Sergei Lavrov’s self-reassuring statements notwithstanding, Wagner’s support is so intertwined with Russia that it is utterly misleading. The Malian or Central African authorities must now choose their allegiance to either Putin or Prigozhin.
– In other countries, where Wagner is ostensibly on the move, the dilemma will be stark. If they continue to cooperate, these countries could close themselves off from the only state that really supported their choice, Russia.
– The Russia-Africa summit on July 27-28, 2023, was an ostensible failure: without Russia, Wagner, a private company, has no legitimacy in Africa; without Wagner, Russia no longer has the propaganda apparatus, the resource capture apparatus, and the armed arm of the Prigozhin system. Not all future propaganda efforts will erase the events of recent days. There will be one before and one after.
– In Africa, Wagner’s reliability is being called into question. Without Russian funding, the paramilitary group is no longer able to provide security.
– This Wagner uprising is further proof of the “client” countries’ loss of sovereignty. In countries where these mercenaries provide the head of state with security, recent events show that the PMC will do whatever it wants if it does not agree with its employer.
– The true faces of Prigozhin and Putin are revealed: greedy, reckless, restless. That is what their partner countries must keep in mind. African leaders using Wagner are forewarned: Prigozhin is prepared to press charges against those who oppose his interests, and Putin’s Russia will be hard pressed to come to protect them.
6. About the upcoming Russia-Africa Summit
– Due to the disorganization in Moscow and the difficult situation in Ukraine (counter-offensives) Ukrainian women taking back territory), the duration of the summit is halved, proof that Africa is clearly not Russia’s priority;
– Tensions between Wagner and the Russian state are hampering the summit’s holding, the police services Russians fear that they cannot provide security for the summit;
– Racist attacks are to be feared during the summit, while African delegations are already awaited by Russian far-right networks.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
James, a Nigerian interested in global politics, writes from Abuja
