Pieces that don’t add up in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine

benfell

Imperialism

Russia

Ukraine


Fig. 1. “Destroyed Russian military vehicles located on the main street Khreshchatyk are seen as part of the celebration of the Independence Day of Ukraine in Kyiv, August 24.” Photograph by Gleb Garanich for Reuters, August 24, 2022,[1] fair use.

There is only one name I have seen put forward in speculation about a coup to depose Vladimir Putin: Yevgeny Prigozhin.[2] Suffice it to say, Prigozhin would be unlikely to improve on Putin. Not that we wouldn’t pay attention anyway just for the bizarreness of Prigozhin’s unrelenting and harsh criticism of the Russian invasion effort in a regime that is, um, selective about what dissent it tolerates.[3]

But because this possibility exists, we have to pay attention to the relationship between the two men and to that between Prigozhin and the Kremlin. An article in the Toronto Star is one of a very few that address even one of these relationships in the present context.[4]

In such a tightly controlled regime, the right to speak freely and critically has traditionally been one granted by Putin alone. So Prigozhin’s virulent and repeated criticisms of the Russian military’s battlefield failings have confounded those trying to understand how the man who used his catering and restaurant businesses to build political connections at the highest levels is still standing.

With Russia’s military efforts stalled and on the eve of a Ukrainian counteroffensive aimed at retaking occupied territory, only one explanation makes sense to [Abbas] Gallyamov: “[Vladimir] Putin depends on [Yevgeny] Prigozhin more than Prigozhin depends on Putin.” . . .

Writing for the Royal United Services Institute in March, Ukrainian military intelligence analyst Oleksandr Danylyuk said that a prolonged public spat between Prigozhin and the military leadership could be a plot to have the defence minister and chief of staff replaced, or to convince Ukrainian military planners and intelligence analysts that the Russians are in disarray.

Danylyuk, an expert in Russian hybrid warfare and its special services, also argued that Prigozhin’s angry, madman persona “also benefits Putin personally, as it supports his strategic narrative that regime change in Russia would also be bad for the West, given that even more aggressive individuals may come to power.”[5]

If Russia indeed is hamstrung for manpower and ammunition,[6] then Putin needs Prigozhin’s soldiers. They’ll both need ammunition but that remains the case whether Prigozhin is in command of the Wagner Group or not. And I think if Putin doubts the ability of Kremlin military leadership, he’ll want as many ‘competent’ commanders as he can get (whether we agree that Prigozhin is in fact competent is another question, pretty close behind whether Putin does something meaningful about the Kremlin military leadership that has, by all accounts, failed so spectacularly).

But there is no debating [Yevgeny] Prigozhin’s bitter frustration with the grinding fight in Bakhmut. He has complained, publicly and privately, that the Russian Defense Ministry has not given his fighters the ammunition and other resources they need to succeed. Bakhmut, in eastern Ukraine, has seen some of the bloodiest fighting of the war. Over the past few months, in a grinding back and forth measured by city blocks, Ukrainian and Russian forces have taken steep casualties.[7]

It’s time, really time, to start watching for pieces that don’t add up. There is of course the entire botched-up war itself; what this war says about Russian military corruption, preparedness, and capability; and of Putin’s czarist fantasies. All really rather quite mind-boggling enough.

But get to questions like that of Putin and (a treasonous) Prigozhin,[8] and how an army can possibly expect to fight without bullets,[9] and yeah, damn it, I’ve got some pieces that aren’t adding up.

Shane Harris and Isabelle Khurshudyan, “Wagner chief offered to give Russian troop locations to Ukraine, leak says,” Washington Post, May 15, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/05/14/prigozhin-wagner-ukraine-leaked-documents/

Allan Woods, “Why Vladimir Putin isn’t shutting down the outspoken ‘thug’ running the Wagner Group,” Toronto Star, May 15, 2023, https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2023/05/15/why-vladimir-putin-isnt-shutting-down-the-outspoken-thug-running-the-wagner-group.html

Illiberalism


Fig. 2. Photograph by Joachim F. Thurn, August 1991, Bundesarchiv, B 145 Bild-F089030-0003, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0 DE.

Deutschewelle, “Turkey election: Erdogan, Kilicdaroglu head to a runoff,” May 15, 2023, https://www.dw.com/en/turkey-election-erdogan-kilicdaroglu-head-to-a-runoff/a-65619880

Gilead

Donald Trump

Russia investigation


Fig. 3. Photograph by Presidential Press and Information Office (Russia, Kremlin.ru), June 28, 2019,, via Wikimedia Commons Kremlin.ru, CC BY 4.0.

Special counsel John Durham [tapped in 2019 by President Donald Trump’s attorney general, William P. Barr] has issued a long-awaited report that sharply criticizes the FBI for investigating the 2016 Trump campaign based on “raw, unanalyzed, and uncorroborated intelligence” — a conclusion that may fuel rather than end partisan debate about politicization within the Justice Department and FBI. . . .

The report, coming almost four years to the day since Durham’s assignment began, will probably be derided by Democrats as the end of a partisan boondoggle. Republicans will have to wrestle with a much-touted investigation that has cost taxpayers more than $6.5 million and didn’t send a single person to jail, even though Trump once predicted that Durham would uncover the “crime of the century.” . . .

Much of the FBI conduct described by the Durham report was previously known and had been denounced in a 2019 report by the Justice Department’s inspector general, which did not find “documentary or testimonial evidence of intentional misconduct.”

Durham goes further in his criticism, however, arguing that the FBI rushed to investigate Trump in a case known as Crossfire Hurricane, even as it proceeded cautiously on allegations related to then-Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. . . .

Durham’s final report comes against a backdrop of two failed prosecutions. Igor Danchenko — a private researcher who was a primary source for a dossier of allegations about Trump’s alleged ties to Russia — was acquitted in October of lying to the FBI about where he got his information. Durham personally argued much of the government’s case in that trial, in federal court in Alexandria.

Last year, a jury in D.C. federal court acquitted cybersecurity lawyer Michael Sussmann, whom Durham also had charged with lying to the FBI. A former FBI lawyer, Kevin Clinesmith, was sentenced to one year of probation after admitting in a 2020 plea deal with Durham that he had altered a government email used to justify secret surveillance of a former Trump campaign adviser, Carter Page.[10]

Devlin Barrett and Perry Stein, “Durham report sharply criticizes FBI’s 2016 Trump campaign probe,” Washington Post, May 15, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/05/15/durham-special-counsel-trump-report/

  1. [1]Reuters, “Ukraine puts destroyed Russian tanks on display in Kyiv,” August 25, 2022, https://www.reuters.com/news/picture/ukraine-puts-destroyed-russian-tanks-on-idUSRTSALV9Q↩
  2. [2]Julia Ioffe, “‘Putin’s Chef’: The Man Behind Russia’s Shadow Army,” Puck, December 13, 2022, https://puck.news/putins-chef-the-man-behind-russias-shadow-army/; Maria Katamadze, “Can Wagner head Yevgeny Prigozhin challenge Putin?” Deutschewelle, February 19, 2023, https://www.dw.com/en/can-wagner-head-yevgeny-prigozhin-challenge-putin/a-64744266↩
  3. [3]Pjotr Sauer, “‘We have already lost’: far-right Russian bloggers slam Kremlin over army response,” Guardian, September 8, 2022, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/sep/08/we-have-already-lost-far-right-russian-bloggers-slam-kremlin-over-army-response↩
  4. [4]Allan Woods, “Why Vladimir Putin isn’t shutting down the outspoken ‘thug’ running the Wagner Group,” Toronto Star, May 15, 2023, https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2023/05/15/why-vladimir-putin-isnt-shutting-down-the-outspoken-thug-running-the-wagner-group.html↩
  5. [5]Allan Woods, “Why Vladimir Putin isn’t shutting down the outspoken ‘thug’ running the Wagner Group,” Toronto Star, May 15, 2023, https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2023/05/15/why-vladimir-putin-isnt-shutting-down-the-outspoken-thug-running-the-wagner-group.html↩
  6. [6]Patrick Tucker, “Without A New Draft, Russian Offensive Operations Are Over, US Intel Chiefs Say,” Defense One, May 4, 2023, https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2023/05/without-new-draft-russian-offensive-operations-are-over-us-intel-chiefs-say/386003/↩
  7. [7]Shane Harris and Isabelle Khurshudyan, “Wagner chief offered to give Russian troop locations to Ukraine, leak says,” Washington Post, May 15, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/05/14/prigozhin-wagner-ukraine-leaked-documents/↩
  8. [8]Shane Harris and Isabelle Khurshudyan, “Wagner chief offered to give Russian troop locations to Ukraine, leak says,” Washington Post, May 15, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/05/14/prigozhin-wagner-ukraine-leaked-documents/; Allan Woods, “Why Vladimir Putin isn’t shutting down the outspoken ‘thug’ running the Wagner Group,” Toronto Star, May 15, 2023, https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2023/05/15/why-vladimir-putin-isnt-shutting-down-the-outspoken-thug-running-the-wagner-group.html↩
  9. [9]Patrick Tucker, “Without A New Draft, Russian Offensive Operations Are Over, US Intel Chiefs Say,” Defense One, May 4, 2023, https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2023/05/without-new-draft-russian-offensive-operations-are-over-us-intel-chiefs-say/386003/↩
  10. [10]Devlin Barrett and Perry Stein, “Durham report sharply criticizes FBI’s 2016 Trump campaign probe,” Washington Post, May 15, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/05/15/durham-special-counsel-trump-report/↩

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