Vladimir Putin survives

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.

In the end, it wasn’t the story a lot of people (including me) had to be thinking it might be:

Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov announced a deal late on Saturday that Wagner mercenary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin would depart for Belarus in return for being spared prosecution, after an abortive rebellion in which his troops made a dash for Moscow.

The announcement, carried by the Tass news agency, came shortly after embittered warlord Prigozhin announced his men were turning back from Moscow to avoid a devastating civil conflict. In a voice recording posted to his Telegram channel, Prigozhin said his troops would turn back after advancing within 200 kilometers of the capital.[2]

It’s still a hell of a story:

Wagner [Group] troops, led by Yevgeny Prigozhin, earlier in the day took over the main military headquarters for southern Russia, in Rostov, and other installations there, encountering virtually no resistance from the regular armed forces. Wagner also sent columns of troops northward toward Moscow, as the Russian army rushed to cut off highways and defend the capital city.[3]

This after Yevgeny Prigozhin had promised to bring “justice,” whatever that actually means, to the Russian defense ministry and to the country as a whole, and the Russian government replied with, among other things, a warrant for Prigozhin’s arrest.[4]

[Yevgeny] Prigozhin, smarting over the Kremlin’s handling of the war in Ukraine, announced early on Saturday that his mercenaries had seized the major southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don, a logistics hub for Putin’s war, and threatened to push on to Moscow. Wagner forces also appeared to be well established in the city of Voronezh, 500 kilometers south of the capital.[5]

This morning (June 24, 2023), in separate articles, Anne Appelbaum and Yaroslav Trofimov confirmed that the Wagner Group moved into Rostov. But we still didn’t have a clue what was really going on beyond that it sure looked like a coup attempt. Appelbaum called it a “civil war,”[6] but I think for it to be a civil war, this has to be more than one ambitious military commander and his forces; it needs significant popular support on each side and I still don’t really see that.

I’m not yet prepared to call it a coup. History shows they are especially difficult in Russia, and I want to see how many friends [Yevgeny] Prighozin has in Moscow. But the Wagner mercenaries have proven to be tougher and better organized than the army, and the far right is robust. ([Vladimir] Putin’s invasion of Ukraine can largely be seen as shoring up his right flank.)[7]

It’s worth a detour to see what we think of what we know about Russian public opinion: We saw that some people say they support Vladimir Putin and his war in Ukraine but we still can’t know beyond stereotypes whether they in fact do.[8] And we saw that some people are snitching on people who don’t support the war,[9] for whatever benefits they might derive and for whatever scores they may hope to settle in doing so, reminiscent not only of the Soviet Union but of the U.S. “terrorist” roundups in Afghanistan that snared many innocent people.

Apart from the right-wing bloggers, I have seen absolutely zero public support for Wagner or Yevgeny Prigozhin, who got many (my impression is ‘most’) of their recruits from Russian prisons. And I’m pretty damned sure that we don’t know jack shit about what the Russian public, with any sense of proportion, really thinks of the Ukraine War or Putin.

The evidence we actually have is of people protesting and fleeing Putin’s military draft.[10] And what’s worse, all of the information I have on Russian civilian public opinion is several months old.

I am simply not seeing anything like adequate evidence for any claim on Russian popular support. I’m deeply skeptical that anybody has that support. So I think Appelbaum’s “civil war” label was at least a step too far. Trofimov, for his part, called it rather an “insurrection”[11] while U.S. government sources are calling it a “coup.”[12] For now, I’m sticking with an attempted “coup.”

A senior Eastern European intelligence official said the service was scrambling to get a clear picture of events but added that “time is not on [Vladimir] Putin’s side.”[13]

All that said, it’s Prigozhin now who’s telling at least a partial truth that Ukraine did not threaten Russia. He claims, unverifiably, that Putin was duped by his military leadership.[14]

We do not know that anyone in Russia who is not on Telegram heard anything Prigozhin said. We do not know that anyone in Russia dared to repeat it. But I have to think that Putin is vulnerable,[15] that his support is soft at best.

The right-wing military bloggers who’ve supported Putin but have complained that the invasion lacks vigor[16] couldn’t have been enthusiastic about Putin but seemed unlikely now to support Prigozhin. We were now well past the point where talk was what mattered and so we still don’t know that their backing substantially matters anyway.

Putin’s military forces have uniformly been reported to be demoralized in the war on Ukraine. It had remained to be seen whether they would resist Prigozhin, join him, or stick with Putin,[17] and if Putin has any inkling at all of how his war in Ukraine has been going, he has to know that he didn’t actually have an answer to that question, and he probably didn’t want to put it to the test.

So where was Prigozhin’s support? Those 25,000 fighters he claimed to have—“[s]ome of these will be ex-convict chancers but others will be the best Russian soldiers, former special forces and former members of the Kremlin guard.”[18] And we don’t even trust that he has those—he claims after all that a Russian military strike took out a large number of his soldiers.[19]

Appelbaum refers to a “hall of mirrors that Vladimir Putin has built around himself and within his country [that] is so complex, and so multilayered, that on the eve of a genuine insurrection in Russia, I doubt very much if the Russian president himself believed it could be real.”[20] One thing to watch for was that it might not only be Putin who deceived himself, and so it proved:

After a day of heightened military tensions — with shells fired in Voronezh and Chechen fighters being dispatched to take on Wagner in Rostov — the uprising suddenly fizzled out in the evening. Ultimately, Moscow appeared an improbably ambitious target for [Yevgeny] Prigozhin and Russian regular forces appeared unable to do much to counter Prigozhin in the south. . . .

“At the moment there is an completely constructive and acceptable option of resolving the situation, with security guarantees for the Wagner PMC fighters on the table,” [Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko’s office’s] press release claimed. If there are such guarantees, they will be a bitter pill for [Vladimir] Putin, who promised to punish the rebels.

Given [Dmitry] Peskov’s statement that Prigozhin will depart for Belarus, it now seems the Wagner commander has failed to to secure his core demands.[21]

This isn’t a win for either Prigozhin or Putin. But Prigozhin will presumably have some safe place in Belarus or perhaps a point beyond. Putin, on the other hand, likely remains in serious trouble.[22]

In the short term, I predict an even more brutal war in Ukraine as Putin strives to get the right-wing bloggers back on side.

Francesca Ebel and Kamila Hrabchuk, “Delivering mail in war-ravaged Ukraine: ‘There are still people living here,’” Washington Post, June 22, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/06/22/mail-delivery-war-hulyaipole-ukraine/

Robyn Dixon and Mary Ilyushina, “Wagner mercenary boss faces arrest over ‘incitement to armed rebellion,’” Washington Post, June 23, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/06/23/prigozhin-wagner-mercenary-russia-military/

Gabriel Gavin, Tim Ross, and Zoya Sheftalovich, “Putin in crisis: Wagner chief Prigozhin declares war on Russian military leadership, says ‘we will destroy everything,’” Politico, June 23, 2023, https://www.politico.eu/article/putin-in-crisis-as-wagner-chief-prigozhin-declares-war-on-russian-military-leadership/

Yaroslav Trofimov, “Russia Issues Arrest Warrant for Wagner Chief on Charges of Mutiny,” Wall Street Journal, June 23, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/articles/ukraine-shoots-down-russian-cruise-missile-barrage-9d9da03a

Nick Allen, “US says Wagner coup is ‘real’ and ‘serious’ as White House consults allies,” Telegraph, June 24, 2023, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/06/24/wagner-coup-russia-us-reaction-joe-biden-vladimir-putin/

Anne Applebaum, “Russia Slides Into Civil War,” Atlantic, June 24, 2023, https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2023/06/russia-civil-war-wagner-putin-coup/674517/

Gabriel Gavin and Christian Oliver, “Kremlin says Prigozhin will depart for Belarus after his rebellion fizzles,” Politico, June 24, 2023, https://www.politico.eu/article/wagner-group-russia-forces-turn-back-moscow-prigozhin-declares/

James Kilner, “Putin’s aura of invincibility is shattered – and in Russia, weakness is terminal,” Telegraph, June 24, 2023, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/06/24/putin-betrayal-russia-coup-armed-mutiny-wagner-prigozhin/

Ellen Nakashima and Shane Harris, “U.S. spies learned in mid-June Prigozhin was plotting Russia uprising,” Washington Post, June 24, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/06/24/us-intelligence-prigozhin-putin/

Richard M. Nixon [Justin Sherrin], “Russia Briefing,” Patreon, June 24, 2023, https://www.patreon.com/posts/russia-briefing-85060327

Yaroslav Trofimov, “Russia’s Putin Orders Military to Crush Wagner Power Grab, Calls It Treason,” Wall Street Journal, June 24, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/articles/ukraine-shoots-down-russian-cruise-missile-barrage-9d9da03a

Electric cars

It looks like Tesla is winning the charging station competition:

On Tuesday, electric car maker Rivian announced it will adopt Tesla’s North American Charge Standard, or NACS. The move follows similar announcements from Ford and GM in recent weeks; Hyundai is reportedly mulling a shift too. Allowing non-Teslas into the extensive Tesla charging network will be a boon for the company: The flurry of new deals could add some $3 billion to Tesla’s revenue in 2030 and more than $5.2 billion in 2032. It could also give one company and its mercurial, right-wing CEO enormous sway over how and where infrastructure critical to decarbonization gets built.[23]

This certainly sounds like it might become an antitrust matter as it appears car makers and other charging providers will struggle to adapt.[24] What I’m really wondering about is how Toyota’s ceramic battery technology[25] will play with all this.

Kate Aronoff, whom I quote above, expresses concern that this might lead car-buyers to defer electric car purchases.[26] I don’t think there’s any question of this; those who’ve waited will surely be vindicated, both by the charging standard war[27] and a far superior battery technology.[28]

Kate Aronoff, “Tesla Is Taking Over America’s Charging Stations,” New Republic, June 21, 2023, https://newrepublic.com/article/173823/tesla-taking-americas-charging-stations

  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]Gabriel Gavin and Christian Oliver, “Kremlin says Prigozhin will depart for Belarus after his rebellion fizzles,” Politico, June 24, 2023, https://www.politico.eu/article/wagner-group-russia-forces-turn-back-moscow-prigozhin-declares/↩
  3. [3]Yaroslav Trofimov, “Russia’s Putin Orders Military to Crush Wagner Power Grab, Calls It Treason,” Wall Street Journal, June 24, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/articles/ukraine-shoots-down-russian-cruise-missile-barrage-9d9da03a↩
  4. [4]Robyn Dixon and Mary Ilyushina, “Wagner mercenary boss faces arrest over ‘incitement to armed rebellion,’” Washington Post, June 23, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/06/23/prigozhin-wagner-mercenary-russia-military/; Gabriel Gavin, Tim Ross, and Zoya Sheftalovich, “Putin in crisis: Wagner chief Prigozhin declares war on Russian military leadership, says ‘we will destroy everything,’” Politico, June 23, 2023, https://www.politico.eu/article/putin-in-crisis-as-wagner-chief-prigozhin-declares-war-on-russian-military-leadership/; Yaroslav Trofimov, “Russia Issues Arrest Warrant for Wagner Chief on Charges of Mutiny,” Wall Street Journal, June 23, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/articles/ukraine-shoots-down-russian-cruise-missile-barrage-9d9da03a↩
  5. [5]Gabriel Gavin and Christian Oliver, “Kremlin says Prigozhin will depart for Belarus after his rebellion fizzles,” Politico, June 24, 2023, https://www.politico.eu/article/wagner-group-russia-forces-turn-back-moscow-prigozhin-declares/↩
  6. [6]Anne Applebaum, “Russia Slides Into Civil War,” Atlantic, June 24, 2023, https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2023/06/russia-civil-war-wagner-putin-coup/674517/; Yaroslav Trofimov, “Russia’s Putin Orders Military to Crush Wagner Power Grab, Calls It Treason,” Wall Street Journal, June 24, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/articles/ukraine-shoots-down-russian-cruise-missile-barrage-9d9da03a↩
  7. [7]Richard M. Nixon [Justin Sherrin], “Russia Briefing,” Patreon, June 24, 2023, https://www.patreon.com/posts/russia-briefing-85060327↩
  8. [8]Julia Ioffe, “Mothers for Putin,” Puck, April 21, 2022, https://puck.news/mothers-for-putin/; Joshua Yaffa, “Why Do So Many Russians Say They Support the War in Ukraine?” New Yorker, March 29, 2022, https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/why-do-so-many-russians-say-they-support-the-war-in-ukraine↩
  9. [9]Robyn Dixon, “Russians snitch on Russians who oppose war with Soviet-style denunciations,” Washington Post, May 27, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/05/27/russia-denunciations-arrests-informants-war/↩
  10. [10]Agence France-Presse, “‘Full chaos’: Over 100,000 Russians flood neighboring countries to flee army call-up,” Times of Israel, September 28, 2022, https://www.timesofisrael.com/full-chaos-over-100000-russians-flood-neighboring-countries-to-flee-army/; Sarah Cahlan et al., “Russians rebel as Putin drafts more people in battle for Ukraine,” Washington Post, September 29, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/29/russia-putin-mobilization-protests-fury/; Robyn Dixon, Mary Ilyushina, and David L. Stern, “Putin faces fury in Russia over military mobilization and prisoner swap,” Washington Post, September 22, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/22/mobilization-putin-anger-russia-war/; Robyn Dixon et al., “Russian mobilization prompts backlash as Ukraine annexation effort plows ahead,” Washington Post, September 25, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/25/russia-ukraine-mobilization-referendums/; Robert Mackey, “Russians Return to Streets to Protest Widening of Putin’s War on Ukraine,” Intercept, September 22, 2022, https://theintercept.com/2022/09/22/russia-ukraine-putin-war-protests/; Pjotr Sauer and Dan Sabbagh, “Border queues build as people flee Russia to escape Putin’s call-up,” Guardian, September 23, 2022, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/sep/23/border-queues-build-as-people-flee-russia-to-escape-putin-call-up; Zoya Sheftalovich, “Putin calls up 300,000 reservists, makes nuclear threat,” Politico, September 21, 2022, https://www.politico.eu/article/putin-announces-partial-mobilization-russian-reservists-nuclear-threat-conscription-ukraine/↩
  11. [11]Yaroslav Trofimov, “Russia’s Putin Orders Military to Crush Wagner Power Grab, Calls It Treason,” Wall Street Journal, June 24, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/articles/ukraine-shoots-down-russian-cruise-missile-barrage-9d9da03a↩
  12. [12]James Kilner, “Putin’s aura of invincibility is shattered – and in Russia, weakness is terminal,” Telegraph, June 24, 2023, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/06/24/putin-betrayal-russia-coup-armed-mutiny-wagner-prigozhin/↩
  13. [13]Yaroslav Trofimov, “Russia’s Putin Orders Military to Crush Wagner Power Grab, Calls It Treason,” Wall Street Journal, June 24, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/articles/ukraine-shoots-down-russian-cruise-missile-barrage-9d9da03a↩
  14. [14]Anne Applebaum, “Russia Slides Into Civil War,” Atlantic, June 24, 2023, https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2023/06/russia-civil-war-wagner-putin-coup/674517/; Robyn Dixon and Mary Ilyushina, “Wagner mercenary boss faces arrest over ‘incitement to armed rebellion,’” Washington Post, June 23, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/06/23/prigozhin-wagner-mercenary-russia-military/; Gabriel Gavin, Tim Ross, and Zoya Sheftalovich, “Putin in crisis: Wagner chief Prigozhin declares war on Russian military leadership, says ‘we will destroy everything,’” Politico, June 23, 2023, https://www.politico.eu/article/putin-in-crisis-as-wagner-chief-prigozhin-declares-war-on-russian-military-leadership/; Yaroslav Trofimov, “Russia Issues Arrest Warrant for Wagner Chief on Charges of Mutiny,” Wall Street Journal, June 23, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/articles/ukraine-shoots-down-russian-cruise-missile-barrage-9d9da03a↩
  15. [15]Con Coughlin, “Putin is retreating into dangerous fantasies,” Telegraph, June 15, 2023, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/15/vladimir-putin-is-retreating-into-dangerous-fantasies/; John Hudson and Dan Lamothe, “Biden shows growing appetite to cross Putin’s red lines,” Washington Post, June 1, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/06/01/ukraine-f-16s-biden-russia-escalation/; James Kilner, “Putin’s aura of invincibility is shattered – and in Russia, weakness is terminal,” Telegraph, June 24, 2023, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/06/24/putin-betrayal-russia-coup-armed-mutiny-wagner-prigozhin/; Vazha Tavberidze, “Interview: The ‘War Of Clans For Putin’s Throne Has Begun,’” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, May 24, 2023, https://www.rferl.org/a/putin-clans-war-russia-interview-succession-ukraine-war/32425962.html; Shaun Walker, “‘Three months ago, this wasn’t possible’: exiled Russians dare to dream of Putin’s fall,” Guardian, June 10, 2023, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/10/russia-exiles-life-after-vladimir-putin↩
  16. [16]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↩
  17. [17]James Kilner, “Putin’s aura of invincibility is shattered – and in Russia, weakness is terminal,” Telegraph, June 24, 2023, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/06/24/putin-betrayal-russia-coup-armed-mutiny-wagner-prigozhin/↩
  18. [18]James Kilner, “Putin’s aura of invincibility is shattered – and in Russia, weakness is terminal,” Telegraph, June 24, 2023, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/06/24/putin-betrayal-russia-coup-armed-mutiny-wagner-prigozhin/↩
  19. [19]Anne Applebaum, “Russia Slides Into Civil War,” Atlantic, June 24, 2023, https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2023/06/russia-civil-war-wagner-putin-coup/674517/; Robyn Dixon and Mary Ilyushina, “Wagner mercenary boss faces arrest over ‘incitement to armed rebellion,’” Washington Post, June 23, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/06/23/prigozhin-wagner-mercenary-russia-military/; Gabriel Gavin, Tim Ross, and Zoya Sheftalovich, “Putin in crisis: Wagner chief Prigozhin declares war on Russian military leadership, says ‘we will destroy everything,’” Politico, June 23, 2023, https://www.politico.eu/article/putin-in-crisis-as-wagner-chief-prigozhin-declares-war-on-russian-military-leadership/; James Kilner, “Putin’s aura of invincibility is shattered – and in Russia, weakness is terminal,” Telegraph, June 24, 2023, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/06/24/putin-betrayal-russia-coup-armed-mutiny-wagner-prigozhin/; Yaroslav Trofimov, “Russia Issues Arrest Warrant for Wagner Chief on Charges of Mutiny,” Wall Street Journal, June 23, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/articles/ukraine-shoots-down-russian-cruise-missile-barrage-9d9da03a; Yaroslav Trofimov, “Russia’s Putin Orders Military to Crush Wagner Power Grab, Calls It Treason,” Wall Street Journal, June 24, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/articles/ukraine-shoots-down-russian-cruise-missile-barrage-9d9da03a↩
  20. [20]Anne Applebaum, “Russia Slides Into Civil War,” Atlantic, June 24, 2023, https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2023/06/russia-civil-war-wagner-putin-coup/674517/↩
  21. [21]Gabriel Gavin and Christian Oliver, “Kremlin says Prigozhin will depart for Belarus after his rebellion fizzles,” Politico, June 24, 2023, https://www.politico.eu/article/wagner-group-russia-forces-turn-back-moscow-prigozhin-declares/↩
  22. [22]James Kilner, “Putin’s aura of invincibility is shattered – and in Russia, weakness is terminal,” Telegraph, June 24, 2023, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/06/24/putin-betrayal-russia-coup-armed-mutiny-wagner-prigozhin/↩
  23. [23]Kate Aronoff, “Tesla Is Taking Over America’s Charging Stations,” New Republic, June 21, 2023, https://newrepublic.com/article/173823/tesla-taking-americas-charging-stations↩
  24. [24]Kate Aronoff, “Tesla Is Taking Over America’s Charging Stations,” New Republic, June 21, 2023, https://newrepublic.com/article/173823/tesla-taking-americas-charging-stations↩
  25. [25]Akito Tanaka et al., “Toyota bets on solid-state as CATL eyes Thailand,” Financial Times, June 15, 2023, https://www.ft.com/content/09e23ac9-f73a-4104-aa2e-33ea48eba67a↩
  26. [26]Kate Aronoff, “Tesla Is Taking Over America’s Charging Stations,” New Republic, June 21, 2023, https://newrepublic.com/article/173823/tesla-taking-americas-charging-stations↩
  27. [27]Kate Aronoff, “Tesla Is Taking Over America’s Charging Stations,” New Republic, June 21, 2023, https://newrepublic.com/article/173823/tesla-taking-americas-charging-stations↩
  28. [28]Akito Tanaka et al., “Toyota bets on solid-state as CATL eyes Thailand,” Financial Times, June 15, 2023, https://www.ft.com/content/09e23ac9-f73a-4104-aa2e-33ea48eba67a↩

2 thoughts on “Vladimir Putin survives”

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