Wagner’s Mutiny – what it means for Putin’s Russia (and Coups 101)

This great video regarding is about what happened with Wagner and Prigozhin. I agree with the author of this video that it was mutiny and not coup. First of all, coup would suggest a change of government which had zero chances to succeed, also Prigozhin didn’t criticize Putin or suggest changing the government because he knew Putin has high approval from the population and suggestions that Putin is being lied to by high figures in the Russian military. His goal was to create a narrative that the fact this conflict continues for so long was because of high figures and corruption in the Russian military and Putin is being lied to and deceived by those high figures and that he is not responsible. In this way he was hoping that he would not alienate people supporting Putin and use around 20-30% of hardliners who think Putin is too weak because there is around 20-30% of people who think Putin’s actions are too weak and that harder measures should be taken and that’s the pitch Prigozhin was aiming at with his actions. There are people suggesting attacking supply centers in Poland and attacking NATO headquarters in Europe or even nuking capitals of European countries; those are the people his actions were aimed at.

His actions were probably caused by financial interest, as was well known and many times it was  mentioned that Wagner’s soldiers were supposed to sign contracts with the Russian military which would remove financial opportunity and power of Prigozhin that he was possessed and that had to be the final straw causing his actions. His actions were not aimed at changing the government but taking Russia’s military headquarters and taking it into his hand those high officials of the Russian military that he thought were responsible for him, instead losing his power and financial opportunities and not removing of Putin. That’s why it was a mutiny and not a coup. His action had to be also supported and helped by the West’s deep state. I am almost sure he had to get assurance from the West that he would get support and even if that mutiny which had a high chance of failing would fail he would be compensated by the West. The West supported that mutiny because even though they knew it had low chances of success and it was not aimed at changing the government because it was not its purpose. It purpose was well described at the end of the video I have posted:

1:05:00

I don’t know what happened and neither do you. There are huge unanswered questions around the nature of the uprising, who was in on it, and what the ultimate terms of the amnesty. As well as what will happen next. I’d argue that based on what we saw, Wagner’s attempt didn’t have much chance of actually capturing Moscow and even less of decisively overthrowing the Russian government unless more of the security services threw their lot in with him than they appear to. But that doesn’t mean the whole affair is without significant impact. If the Russian narratives has been undermined, if stability has been challenged, if equipment has to be re-purposed for Rosgvardiya rather than the regular military, or purges and distrust weaken that regular army, then the ultimate beneficiaries of this whole affair probably won’t be Prigozhin, Putin, or any member of the Russian elite, it’ll be Ukraine. That said, the path forward is very much uncertain. We don’t know who will be purged, who will be interrogated, or whether a softly-softly approach will ultimately be followed. And so I suspect this is something we are going to have to keep a close eye on. Monitoring how the Russian army and security services choose to deal with this interesting chain of events, and what it ultimately ends up meaning for Prigozhin, Wagner, Russia, Ukraine and the government of Vladimir Putin.

All of it was just one big PR stunt since it had very low chances of achieving its officially stated goals but even if it failed it achieved the goal of weakening Russia internally but most importantly it was a moral bust for Ukraine. That’s why this talk in the West before that event about investment in the steel industry and non-military investment in Ukraine because failure of counter offensive and high casualties on the Ukraine side started to destroy the moral of Ukrainians. So the West announced non-military investment in Ukraine to convince Ukrainians that the West wants to help Ukraine and not just use it as cannon fodder to achieve its military and political goals. The same goal served that event with Wagner and it was needed because there was lots of voices about Ukraine units mass surrendering to Russians and moral of the Ukraine is low. The West is okay with losing half of Ukraine and splitting and destroying the state to weaken Russia and prevent Russia and Germany having an economic cooperation as long as they are able to hold the narrative in Western Ukraine. What they were afraid is Western Ukraine stops believing the Western narrative and the Western Ukraine ends  up joining forces with Russia after having realized that they were being sacrificed. Those non-military investments and the Wagner affair were supposed to prevent that and repair the moral of Ukrainians and hold over the narrative in Ukraine by the Ukrainian government. So it was just one big PR stunt.

Some people thought Putin is acting too weak because he is not attacking supply centers in Poland and attacking NATO headquarters in EU NATO states and by not Nuking capitals of EU NATO countries. Do you really think those people will not have a problem with letting Prigozhin and Wagner scot free after what happened. I am not saying Putin could do anything better, he had no better choice he just picked the least damaging one.  If he would have crushed them by military actions it would also have had a bad effect. He picked the least bad options but I just want to point out all of his options were bad. He had no good choices and while I am not saying it’s the end of Putin or that he lost lots of support, what happened did hurt him a little. Those people who thought already Putin is acting to weak and that he is to moderate so people who were calling to stop this special military operation and start proper war will not be happy Prigozhin and Wagner got scot free after what they did after he said publicly they will pay and after Russian lives were lost because of what they did and that’s problematic for Putin.