Moscow’s Shortest Civil War — Interrupted
As the World held its breath, Putin called Prigozhin for a time-out
Putin agrees to an unlikely reprieve for an ally now considered a traitor. The two men’s past will likely not save the Wagner Group’s leader from the Russian President’s usual acts of revenge. Those who undermine Putin normally don’t live freely, if at all.
Following weeks of angry accusations and demands by Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, a missile strike hit his group’s stronghold in the Ukraine war. Prigozhin accused Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu of ordering the hit and called for his ouster.
In an angry video, the mercenary leader railed against Putin after asserting Russians had been led into war against Ukraine by corrupt Kremlin leaders under false pretenses. He complained of corrupt officials who used his group to fight in Syria, Africa, and Ukraine to make money. He vowed to lead 25,000 soldiers he called patriots — many of them prisoners who had been released with a promise of amnesty if they lasted 6 months on the front lines — to Moscow for justice.
In dramatic BBC footage, Prigozhin led troops into Russian territory at Rostov-on-Don where he took command of a military compound, then covered half the distance to Moscow by way of Voronezh, where large plumes of smoke were seen near an ammunition silo.
Putin was rumored to have fled to his home and bunker in St. Petersburg following an angry televised address to the Russian people.
As the Wagner Group made its way to Moscow, AP News reported the June 23, 2023 Russian rebellion led by Yevgeny Prigozhin of the Wagner Group was resolved.
Russian media reported late Saturday that several helicopters and a military communications plane were downed by Wagner troops during the short-lived uprising. Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin previously said his forces had taken control of the military headquarters in Rostov-on-Don, as well as other military facilities in the city without any deaths or even “a single gunshot.”
The Kremlin referred the question about the losses to the Defense Ministry, which has kept mum.
The mercenary chief who urged an uprising against Russia’s generals has long ties to Putin
Russia says Wagner Group’s leader will move to Belarus after his rebellious march challenged Putin
US, UK, France demand UN investigate Russia’s sanctions-busting use of Iranian drones in Ukraine
Who is the head of the mercenary group calling for an armed rebellion in Russia?
The latest on the armed rebellion declared by Russian mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin:
The head of the private Russian military company Wagner will move to neighboring Belarus as part of deal to defuse rebellion tensions and the criminal case against him will be closed, the Kremlin said Saturday.
Yevgeny Prigozhin’s troops who joined him in the uprising will not face prosecution and those who did not will be offered contracts by the Defense Ministry, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
After the deal was reached, Prigozhin said he was ordering his troops to halt their march on Moscow and retreat to field camps in Ukraine, where they have been fighting alongside Russian troops.
The head of the Wagner group said Saturday he has ordered his mercenaries to halt their march on Moscow and retreat to their field camps in Ukraine to avoid shedding Russian blood.
The announcement from Yevgeny Prigozhin appeared to defuse a dramatically escalating crisis that represented the most significant challenge to President Vladimir Putin’s leadership in his more than two decades in power. Moscow had braced for the arrival of the private army led by the rebellious commander while Putin had vowed that Prigozhin would face harsh consequences.
Prigozhin didn’t say whether the Kremlin had responded to his demand to oust Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu. There was no immediate comment from the Kremlin.
The announcement followed a statement from the office of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko saying that he had negotiated a deal with Prigozhin after previously discussing the issue with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Putin’s Greatest Fears
Putin has reportedly been fearful of becoming a dictator ousted and killed by armed rebellions such as Libya’s Omar Quaddafy or Iraq’s Saddam Hussein. Despite calling the armed rebellion by Prigozhin a betrayal on the level of the 1917 Russian Revolution and his vow to punish its leaders, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said he had negotiated a deal with Prigozhin after previously discussing the issue with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
According to Wikipedia, Alexander “Lukashenko heads an authoritarian government and has been referred to in the media as the “last dictator” in Europe. Elections are not considered to be free and fair by international monitors, opponents of the regime are repressed, and the media is not free. Following the contested election, Lukashenko is not recognized by the United Kingdom, the European Union, or the United States as the legitimate president of Belarus.”
Lukashenko is the longest-sitting president of a European nation, having come to power in 1994.
Belarus has been Russia’s only material ally in the war against Ukraine, receiving nuclear weapons and providing training and assistance to Russian soldiers in the 16-month-long invasion of Ukraine.
Prigozhin’s Rise to Power
After years of denying links to the Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin admitted in September 2022 that he founded, funded, and led the paramilitary group on behalf of Putin. Known as “Putin’s Chef”, the two men became close after Prigozhin was released from prison after serving 12 years for burglary and assault. Putin was then an assistant to the Mayor where Prigozhin ran a catering business.
In 2021, the European Union accused the group of “serious human rights abuses, including torture and extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions and killings,” and of carrying out “destabilizing activities” in Central African Republic, Libya, Syria, and Ukraine.
During the early days of the Ukraine invasion, Prigozhin’s men were rumored to be taking Viagra while raping women and children. Many Ukrainian children were forcibly removed from their homes and taken to Russia then put up for adoption. Maternity hospitals were bombed as civilians were executed, their bodies dumped in the streets or in mass graves. The Wagner group is known to use sledgehammers rather than waste bullets when necessary.
The Wagner group’s first soldier was Dmitry Utkin, a neo-Nazi fan of German composer Richard Wagner, known for his dark and violent classical music. The composer was well known for his anti-semitic and racist views and counted Hitler among his fans.
Prigozhin was awarded lucrative military contracts and became wealthy from mines stolen in countries his group fought. His group continues to battle in the Middle East and Africa, amassing charges of war crimes at the Hague.
Putin’s History of Revenge
Putin is known for harsh retribution against his enemies. Alexei Navalny is the most well-known living political opponent of Vladimir Putin and remains imprisoned. Despite being charged with what many believe are trumped-up charges of embezzlement, he became politically active and a vocal critic of Putin in 2010. He described Russia’s ruling party, United Russia, as a “party of crooks and thieves”.
In August 2020, Navalny was hospitalized in serious condition after being poisoned with a Novichok nerve agent. He was medically evacuated to Berlin and discharged a month later. Navalny accused Putin of being responsible for his poisoning, and an investigation implicated agents from the Federal Security Service. He is recognized by Amnesty International as a prisoner of conscience, and was awarded the Sakharov Prize for his work on human rights. After returning to Russia from Germany he was arrested on the earlier embezzlement charge and sentenced to 2 1/2 years. Later, an additional 9 years was added to his sentence. It’s unlikely he’ll ever be freed.
According to the PBS Frontline documentary,
When opposition politician Vladimir Kara-Murza sat down for an interview with FRONTLINE in July 2017, he warned about the consequences of speaking out against Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“There’s been a very high mortality rate in the last several years among the people who have crossed the path of Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin — independent journalists, anti-corruption campaigners, opposition activists, opposition leaders,” he said.
Kara-Murza, Russian journalist Yevgenia Albats and opposition politician Gennady Gudkov speak openly about Putin and the crackdown on protesters and critics.
Kara-Murza was sentenced to 25 years in prison in Moscow, Russia, on April 17 2023 after publicly criticizing Putin and ongoing repression in Russia on three occasions between October 2021 and March 2022. His case is considered the first in which opposition to the Kremlin has been deemed high treason — a decision Kara-Murza said “baffled” his lawyers — and his sentence is widely-reported to be the longest given to an opposition politician since the war in Ukraine began last year. In addition to high treason, he was previously charged with working with an “undesirable organization” and “spreading deliberately false information” about the Russian military.
“I subscribe to every word that I have spoken and every word of which I have been accused by this court,” Kara-Murza said in the closing session of his trial on April 10. “I blame myself for only one thing: that over the years of my political activity I have not managed to convince enough of my compatriots and enough politicians in the democratic countries of the danger that the current regime in the Kremlin poses for Russia and for the world.”
Kara-Murza has been writing columns for The Washington Post regularly since 2018 and has continued to do so while in detention. In October, he received the Václav Havel Prize for the protection of human rights in Russia.
Before his arrest in April 2022, Kara-Murza delivered speeches and testimony to U.S. lawmakers, the United Nations and NATO, in which he criticized Putin’s actions to try to remain in power, censorship of the media and stifling of freedom of speech and protest in Russia. He served as deputy leader of the People’s Freedom Party from July 2015 to December 2016, a political party that built its platform around advocating for democracy and protection of human rights of Russian citizens.
Kara-Murza also advocated for a 2012 U.S. law — the Magnitsky Act — that froze American assets of Russians found guilty of human rights violations. It was a move that he told FRONTLINE he had “no doubt” led to two attempts to kill him. He was hospitalized for suspected poisonings twice — in 2015 and again in 2017.
Yevgenia Albats: One of Russian independent media’s last holdouts
When Putin signed a law in March 2022 criminalizing “fake news” about the war — or anything that ran counter to official statements — many journalists fled, choosing to report from abroad, while others shut down their outlets entirely. Yevgenia Albats, editor-in-chief of Russian independent magazine The New Times, stayed in Russia for nearly five more months.
“I already had four administrative cases against me, I was labeled a ‘foreign agent,’ and it became clear to me that just three or four weeks were left before I will be arrested,” Albats said in a video posted on her YouTube channel in September, according to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.
Albats was labeled a foreign agent by the Russian government at the end of July 2022 — a designation that would subject her to state audits and the publication of a disclaimer alongside all of her work. She told NPR last September that the decision reminded her of her grandfather, who had also been labeled a foreign agent and shot and killed in Soviet times.
“Putin realized that in order not to have any contester, any opposition, he has to have full control over networks,” she said. “His first move was to take control over private TV network and TV, and then, step by step, he got control over each and every TV network in this country.”
Since September 2022, Albats has been running The New Times from the U.S. while she teaches at New York University as a journalist-in-residence.
Gennedy Gudkov: Watching Putin move ‘toward authoritarianism’
Gudkov has been living in Bulgaria since 2019, when he left Russia as a precautionary measure, Reuters reported, following years of being a vocal critic of Putin.
A former KGB officer like Putin, Gudkov had served in the Russian parliament, the State Duma, since 2001 and watched Russia become less democratic as Putin tightened his grip on all aspects of government.
“I think Putin should have been the man who would embrace those democratic ideas, the ideas behind the reforms, in the country and in the Communist Party,” Gudkov told FRONTLINE in a 2017 interview. “I regret watching him change toward authoritarianism, toward totalitarianism, toward almost dictatorship.”
In the same interview, Gudkov talked about participating in a demonstration with tens of thousands of Russians after evidence of fraud emerged in the 2011 election that gave Putin his third presidential term. At the time, he was a member of the populist A Just Russia party, which says it advocates for a “new socialism” in Russia.
Read more: Gennady Gudkov (2017)
In 2012, Gudkov was expelled from the Duma for violating a law that prevents Duma members from profiting commercially while holding office. Gudkov said the move was “political revenge” for his role in opposition politics.
Gudkov has continued to speak out against Putin and denounce the invasion of Ukraine. Like Kara-Murza, he’s counting on, and planning for, a post-Putin Russia.
“What Western governments and diplomats primarily require of us is a general picture of Russia as it should be after Putin,” he told Bloomberg in November. “Because everyone understands that the regime doesn’t have much time left.”
Cost of the Ukraine war
According to Reuters, as many as 354,000 Russian and Ukrainian soldiers have been killed or injured in the Ukraine war.
The Russo-Ukrainian War included six deaths during the 2014 annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation, 14,200–14,400 military and civilian deaths during the war in Donbas (2014–2022), and untold deaths during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.
It’s estimated the cost of the war is over $1 billion dollars daily.
Estimates for rebuilding Ukraine following the war total close to $114 billion dollars, with severe infrastructure damage, loss of homes, hospitals, schools, dams, water and electrical facilities, and military installations. The US has committed around $35 billion in weapons and aid.
Ukraine, once known as the “World’s Bread Basket” for producing grains now suffers food shortages and requires aid for over 35 million residents. The cost of goods once produced by both Russia and Ukraine has caused international economic disruptions.
Final Thoughts
President Putin is known for being ruthless against adversaries. Prigozhin boasts of brutal acts and has been given free rein in robbing, raping, and massacring civilians. Neither puts a high value on human life, and both are extremely determined and egotistical.
Previous members of the FSB and GRU who have fled Russia have been killed. It’s unlikely Yevgeny Prigozhin’s betrayal will be allowed to stand. Putin is keenly aware of his own image and doesn’t allow public displays of dissent in his cabinet. Undermining Putin is usually a capital offense.
The Russian President is motivated by his own ambition for a celebrated legacy, comparing himself to Peter the Great — the first Russian czar named Emperor. At the beginning of Peter’s reign, Russia was huge but had no access to the sea. Winning such an outlet became Peter’s main goal and greatest achievement.
Putin was serving in the KGB in Berlin when the wall fell and the Soviet Union collapsed — something which has haunted the young officer. Previous military actions against Georgia and Ukraine have left other past member nations of the Soviet Union worried over threats of invasion.
How these events will impact the war in Ukraine is left to be seen.
At a minimum, Putin’s disorganized invasion and war with Ukraine he once described as a “quick special military operation”, his lack of control and awareness of military rivalries and in-fighting have caused a further loss of respect for the President. The Supreme Commander’s ability to effectively rule is increasingly being called into question among Russia’s oligarchs as Russia becomes more ostracized the world over.
Curfews and an increased military presence were implemented in and around Moscow over the anticipated arrival of the Wagner Group. It’s expected Putin will continue repressive measures, including a news blackout already instigated over the past day. Misinformation and propaganda are normal parts of controlling the Russian public’s view of a war they’re told is necessary to avert impending Western aggression.
Like other dictatorships, Internet access and public transportation are now limited and carefully controlled within Russia. Reportedly, Russian citizens are frightened.
As of this writing on 24 June 2023, it appears a full-scale civil war has been avoided, but the high cost of this aggression will not go unchallenged.
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