Three things from this week’s pod with the Wall Street Journal’s Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent, Yaroslav Trofimov:
The Achilles heel of the Putin regime is indifference. No one cares if Putin lives, dies, rules, or is ousted.
Many argue whoever succeeds Putin could be worse; in short, argues Trofimov, no one could be worse.
The Wagner putsch is proof positive Putin is much weaker than the Biden administration has insisted.
Note: This interview took place before revelations about a post-putsch meeting between Putin and Prigozhin.
Throughout the Cold War, the U.S. intelligence community — and presumably much of Europe’s as well — insisted that the Soviet Union was a force to be reckoned with, an economic and military juggernaut. The invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 and Soviet troops’ defeat at the hands of the U.S.-backed mujaheddin suggested otherwise. And following the Reagan shift in policy and the defense build-up of the 1980s, it became clear that the intel community didn’t know what the hell it was talking about. This was a paper tiger, albeit one with nuclear weapons.
Intelligence is art, not science, and mistakes can be made. But the mistakes of the Cold War were epic. Now we are watching as once again our spies are revealed as sub-par analysts, with estimations of Russian strength and will that bear little relationship to reality. Spooks told the President that Ukraine would be done in three days.
So… it should come as no surprise that when Putin’s ex-caterer and hand-picked contract killed Yevgeni Prigozhin decided the Ukraine war was a badly managed, stupid idea, they were flummoxed. Nor were they alone: Putin, too, seemed totally surprised — almost immobilized — by Prigozhin’s turn. The question is, what does it mean about Putin that he fled Moscow like a chicken? That the Russian people greeted Prigozhin as a hero? That Russian military efforts to halt the progression of the Wagner Group toward Moscow were pathetically inept? Or that in the peace that ensued, Prigozhin got back all his arms and all his money. Weird, right?
That’s what intelligence communities are for — to tell our leaders what’s really happening behind the scenes, and allow them to plan to exploit new opportunities and make wise decisions about threats to our security. That hasn’t happened. Instead, the IC has overestimated Putin at every turn, as gobsmacked as your household pet when Wagner turned, and still thinks that, all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding, we mustn’t annoy the evil Mr. Putin because he will… what? Nuke us? Why?
To the layman, recent developments suggest Putin is weak, that the U.S. should go all in to help Ukraine, that poor vain Vladimir and his botoxed forehead are very vulnerable, and that we should edge him and his creepy friends out of Ukraine, Syria, Georgia, Iran, and wherever else they are found. Will that happen? Our money is on no.
HIGHLIGHTS
What do we need to understand about Russia today?
YT: Russia doesn't seek to be loved. The entire purpose of the Russian foreign policy lately is let them be afraid of us. They aren't going to love us, anyway. And so, yes. The cornerstone of that approach is you should be talking about [how] we’re unpredictable, we are violent, you never know what's going to happen on that.
Basically, the entire Putin mystique built up very carefully over the last 23 years was that he was this alpha male, riding horses bare chested, doesn't forgive treason, all his enemies die painful death from nerve agents, poison tea, or just being shot inside the Kremlin. And all of a sudden, he had this amazing challenge to his authority, he had the column of armed troops driving to Moscow virtually unopposed, on the verge of seizing the city.
Putin himself, the morning of that day, was on television and said "This is treason, this is a stab in the back, this is the betrayal of the motherland." And 10 hours later, all of a sudden he forgave everyone and reached a compromise, the details of which we don't even know yet. But it was brokered by the president of Belarus, and all of a sudden Prigozhin, the leader of Wagner who lead this column, is exonerated, so are his men. The money and the weapons that were confiscated from him in St. Petersburg the morning of the day, were given back. Hundreds of millions of dollars in cash, according to Russian reports. And everything is forgiven. That really doesn't jive with the image of Putin that was built up over those two decades.
Why was Prigozhin welcomed by average Russians?
YT: I think the foundation of the regime is indifference. For the last 20 years, they were really inculcating in the population a political indifference. So, the deal was, we provide security and the economy is growing, as it was until at least 2014. And in return, we just stay away from politics, don't get interested in anything.
When this putsch happens, all of a sudden nobody was really out in the streets defending Putin. There were no public voices, until he spoke in the morning. And I wouldn't say that there was a lot of love for Prigozhin and Wagner. It was curiosity. But there was certainly no one out there saying, "Let's defend our president, we love him so much." People didn't care.
And lots of people in Moscow that day were kind of expecting that the city would fall without a fight. Some were worrying about this, most of them were indifferent. That is really the Achilles heel of this regime, is that if someone else challenges him we now know that the population will really not care.
I think the events of shortly recently showed that if a small but determined group of people tries to oust the regime, nobody else will stand in their way.
Why does Wagner even exist?
YT: We have to go first of all to the reason why Wagner was built up. Putin comes from the good old KGB, from the Soviet Security Services which then became FSB. The fear in the KGB was always the fear of the army, going all the way, way back to Marshal Zhukov and fears of Zhukov, the legendary leader, victorious General of World War II. [The fear he or someone like him ] would try to seize power always dominated the relationship between the FSB and the army. Putin is afraid of the army.
Putin in his 23 years in power has removed most of the charismatic generals, who really rallied public support, and he built up Wagner in part to be this Praetorian Guard that could keep the army in check. There is an old personal bond between him and Prigozhin, Prigozhin was his chef and caterer, he gave him all the contracts to supply the military with food and other things. Prigozhin made tens of billions of dollars off the Russian state.
Putin seemed to just let this attempted putsch happen?
YT: Up until the very last moment as this personal hostility grew between Prigozhin and Wagner people, and the leadership of the Russian Ministry of Defense … Putin did not interfere. Kind of stood there and watched like he didn't realize how serious it is. And if you look at Prigozhin's complaints, initially they were complaints about how the war is mismanaged. And obviously the war is mismanaged, Russia's casualties are horrendous, Russia lost 2000 tanks the entire plan for this quick, victorious war, that to be fair was Putin's plan even more than Shoigu and Prigozhin's, was completely flawed.
There is a sense, within the Russian ranks, among these colonels and these majors and especially captains and company commanders, that the high brass of the military just doesn't care. Doesn't care about casualties, and is completely unable to prosecute the war in any sort of rational way. We have seen that there were no battlefield victories for the Russian Army for over a year, whereas Prigozhin at a huge cost, however managed to seize the city of Bakhmut, which was the only Russian victory in the last 12 months.
So what changed?
YT: But this criticism really changed in part because Prigozhin was in Bakhmut. He was seeing horrible things, being in the lines of shelling, and I think his psyche was changed by several months of being at the very front line. Burying his soldiers every day by the hundreds. The video address that he made a day before this attempted mutiny challenged not just the way, the direction of the war, it challenged the very foundational myth of this war. He said that the war is not necessary, that the Zelensky would have signed an agreement with Putin if Putin had, quote unquote, come down from the Olympus to negotiate.
Was there a tipping point?
YT: The immediate trigger for all of this was obviously the July 1st deadline for all the private military companies like Wagner, to sign contracts with the Ministry of Defense. He acted preemptively, to scuttle that.
[Wagner was] called back to Ukraine last March, almost a month after the invasion when it really became clear that the invasion wasn't really going according to plan, to try to rescue the situation. And they succeeded, because they are supposed to be the most combat efficient formation of the Russian military structure. Why? Because they had the money and they spent the previous year recruiting all the best talent away from the actual Russian military.
So, in fact, Putin is much weaker than the Biden administration has been insisting?
YT: Obviously it's not a coincidence just a few days after the failed mutiny, the administration actually started talking about revisiting its refusal to supply the ATACMS missiles, which sort of missiles that could be fired by HIMARS and reach hundreds of miles, as opposed to dozens on miles that the current HIMARS missiles have the range of.
I feel that the self-imposed red lines of a year ago, there's a lot of movements, things they would consider to be unacceptable that suddenly were delivered and are now on the battlefield and making a difference.
The UK, moving far ahead of the US decision making, has already supplied the Storm Shadow cruise missiles, that can reach anywhere in occupied Ukraine and have been used very effectively in the last couple of months with them. ATACMS will not be a qualitatively different weapon from the Storm Shadows.
What did Prigozhin get for standing down? A change in the war leadership?
YT: [I]t all depends what happens in the battlefield. If there is another major Russian defeat as this year, then there will be huge pressure on Putin to do something about it and to stop pretending that everything is going to be fine. I think Putin's own position would also be quite threatened by any battlefield development that exposed the weakness of the command, that exposed the incapacity of the Russian military in a war against a country that it didn't consider to be a serious opponent, the Ukraine.
What was the Wagner “secret sauce”?
YT: The reason why Wagner was successful in war is because they had access to the Russian prison camps. So they could recruit tens of thousands of prisoners that under the command of Wagner within its operational structure, within its ability to integrate in the battlefield, actually it was very effective.
That opportunity was closed to Wagner, and the military defense is now directly recruiting prisoners through an alternative prisoner force called Storm-Z, which is nowhere near as effective because it lacks the secret sauce of Wagner's cadre of commanders.
What does it all mean for Putin?
YT: Well, there is an election coming up next year. He looks weak, he looks exposed, he looks very emotional. His reaction to the putsch was to travel to the remotest Kyrgyzstan and the Caucasus. And after being isolated for years because of COVID, suddenly he's joined this crown of ecstatic locals showing him love, because he desperately needed to feel this crowd, the adoration of the crowd. The regime narrative now almost doesn't mention this whole untoward thing happened, it's wiped out from memory.
He'll carry on and hope that nobody challenges him seriously and the main trigger for that, a challenge, is likely to be a battlefield defeat for the Russian military in the Ukraine. That's why it's probably so important for the Ukrainians for the partners of the Ukrainian government, to keep pushing in the battlefield, trying to achieve a success.
Will he lose the support of the Russian people?
YT: There's certainly opposition to the way the war has been waged. There is a lot of sense that the war was unnecessary. That doesn't mean that you actually want to end it or give Ukraine victory because there's a lot people in Russia say, "Well, the war was unnecessary. It's a terrible idea. We made a big mistake but now that the war is on, we can't lose. So we have to do everything to keep going." And I think there is a lot of that in the military as well. Certainly they haven't accepted defeat just yet, but the combination of not being able to win and high casualties is what historically has caused revolutions and troubles inside Russia. Look back in 1917, 1905, and look back at the war in Afghanistan.
Couldn’t we end up with something worse than Putin?
YT: All right. I mean, someone coming after Putin could initiate sort of terror upon the Russian population, that's possible. But I don't think anybody could be worse for Russian neighbors because what are they going to do that Putin hasn't tried already? I mean, short of nuclear weapons, which is something that they're not using for their own survival interest, everything else has been tried. It's nothing that the next President to Russia could try militarily in Ukraine that'll be more successful than what have already tried. And whoever comes after Putin will have an interest in ending this war and focusing on internal stability. And he could blame Putin or she could blame Putin for all the mistakes made before. So I think from the point of view of Ukraine and it's neighbors, they really don't think that any alternative to Putin could be worse.
Full transcript here.
SHOWNOTES
What’s Next for Russia (Yaroslav Trofimov, WSJ, June 30)
Prigozhin in Belarus as Wagner Prepares to Hand Over Weapons in Russia (Yaroslav Trofimov, WSJ, June 27)
After Weekend of Chaos in Russia, Questions Remain Over Fate of Wagner (Yaroslav Trofimov, WSJ, June 26)
Wagner Group’s Revolt in Russia Ends After Deal Struck. Here’s What to Know (Anisha Kohli and Solcyre Burga, Time, June 25)
Timeline: How Wagner Group’s Revolt against Russia unfolded (Aljazeera, June 24)
Prigozhin may have been offered dismissal of Shoigu and Gerasimov, says SBU (New Voice of Ukraine, June 25)
The Military Leaders Who Could Swing the Balance of Power in Russia (Yaroslav Trofimov, WSJ, June 30)
A week after an armed rebellion rattled Russia, key details still shrouded in mystery (PBS, June 30)
Prigozhin in Belarus as Wagner Prepares to Hand Over Weapons in Russia (Yaroslav Trofimov, WSJ, June 27)
After Weekend of Chaos in Russia, Questions Remain Over Fate of Wagner (Yaroslav Trofimov, WSJ, June 26)
YEVGENY PRIGOZHIN’S THREATENED UPRISING AGAINST PUTIN ECHOES RUSSIA’S HISTORY OF WARS GONE BAD (Murtaza Hussain, The Intercept, June 24)
Ukraine response to Wagner mutiny in Russia with caution, hope (Mansur Mirovalev, Al Jazeera, June 24)
Russia’s Notorious Wagner Group Is Being Disbanded. Here’s What That Means for Ukraine (Armani Syed and Anna Gordon, Time, June 27)
Russian rockets strike five Ukraine regions amid Wagner rebellion (Varg Folkman, Politico, June 24)
Foreign Ministry Spokesperson’s Remarks on the Wagner Group Incident (June 25)
What’s at stake for China in the Wagner rebellion? (Patricia Kim, Brookings, June 27)
Russia’s Uprising Is a Serious Threat to China as Well (Hal Brands, Bloomberg, June 24)
Why the War in Ukraine May Not Deter China (Yaroslav Trofimov, WSJ, June 16)
Wagner Uprising Highlights China’s Risks with Russia (David Pierson and Olivia Wang, NYT, July 1)
U.S. evaluating what Wagner Group rebellion means for Ukraine war (Jonathan Lemire and Alexander Ward, Politico, June 24)
Be prepared: Lessons for the West from the Wagner mutiny (Kirill Shamiev, European Council on Foreign Relations, June 28)
DOD: No Changes in Russian, U.S. Strategic Posture After Wagner Security Situation (Todd Lopez, DOD News, June 29)
Russia allies Turkey, Iran pledge support for Putin during Wagner Group coup crisis (Mary Kay Linge, NY Post, June 24)
Biden says US played no role in Russia’s Wagner mutiny: ‘We were not involved’ (Nick Robins-Early, The Guardian, June 26)