Something is Rotten in Moscow

Putin has told the Russian Nation About the Prigozhin Coup

During the Soviet period there was a joke going around on what Russian dissidents called Armenian Radio (sometimes Radio Yerevan).  The joke went like this:  a Russian man is sent by his wife to buy meat.  But he is told they are out of meat.  So he goes to buy chicken.  But he is told there isn't any.  Standing in line at the fish stand he hears they are out of fish.  He starts screaming how terrible the Soviet system is. Another person in the line tries to calm him down: "Dear comrade," he says. "talk like that can get you shot."  A KGB guy comes over and tells him to shut up.  The man turns and says to the man who warned him: "See," he says. "They are out of meat, chicken, fish and even bullets."

The Soviet system was marked by massive corruption and huge inefficiencies.  Russia today has kept up with the Soviet Union when it comes to corruption.  For a while Russia was even out of bullets, but while that has been fixed, there are a host of other problems in the "system" that bedevil the Russian government.

It was first seen when the Russian army invaded Ukraine and made blunder after blunder, seeing its armor forces clobbered by Ukrainian fighters.  It turned out the Russian army was not up to the job.  It was a lazy army that was not well trained or well led.  After very heavy losses in men and equipment, many generals and senior colonels were replaced, and the Russian army started to get its act together and learn how to fight in a modern war.  That explains why they have successfully resisted the Ukrainian counter offensive so well.

But the same is not true for internal security. The exceptional level of sabotage and killings inside Russia tells us that the internal security system is far below what it once was.  The main Russian political game is helping your opponents out of their hot tubs, throwing them out of windows, or poisoning them, or blowing up their cars or shooting them on the street.  These acts seem to be the norm, and that is bad news for any government that wants to be viewed as reliable and responsible.

Perpetrators are almost never caught or punished, probably because the murders were all sanctioned.

Prigozhin allegedly in Rostov-on-Don

Today we are in the first stages of a revolt by the Wagner group against the Russian army and the Putin government.  Wagner forces marched unopposed into Rostov-on-Don and are now fighting regular Russian army forces. Yevgeny Prigozhin, Wagner's founder and leader, is calling for the overthrow of the Russian government and it is said he is moving his forces toward Moscow.  Prigozhin claims domestic support for his operation, although it remains to be seen if that is the case.  Prigozhin has become increasingly unhinged in the past few months, and it is strange indeed that he was not already arrested and in jail, or, following Russian current-day political custom, liquidated.

Putin has given a speech to the nation where he called the Wagner operation “treason” and a threat to Russia.

It is hard to explain, but it appears that Putin was playing Prigozhin off against the Russian army leadership, including his defense minister, Sergey Shoighu.  Exactly why Putin did this is not entirely clear, but maybe Putin was worried about an army coup against himself and needed Prigozhin to shore up his leadership.  Putin and Prigozhin are long-time colleagues, and obviously it took a lot for Putin to finally turn on Prigozhin, claiming he was "stabbed in the back" and that Prigozhin's attack was treason.  

Wagner forces until now have played an outsized role in Russian military-political initiatives in Ukraine, in Africa and in the Middle East.  They have been successful, most of all in the long battle for Bakhmut, a major "Russian" victory but really a Wagner victory.  

The US ran into similar problems with Blackwater, the US private military group that even provided security for State Department employees. Blackwater finally crashed after serious human rights abuses including shooting innocent civilians. In 2020 President Trump pardoned Blackwater contractors jailed for massacring Iraqi civilians.

The big issue for Russia was trying to bring Wagner under command of the Russian army.  Prigozhin refused to agree to do so, after months of infighting between Prigozhin and the Russian army leadership.  In short, Prigozhin saw his private army as independent and answerable only to himself.  That is the root cause of the conflict now unfolding.

It is too early to say what will happen in the now bloody quarrel between the Russian army and government on one side, and Wagner and Prigozhin on the other.  Prigozhin is a talented propagandist and knows how to exploit social media.  It is reported he even hacked Russian television to push his message. 

On the other side of the coin it also is the case that Russian internal security and Russian political leaders failed to grasp the gravity of the threat they faced.  One explanation is that the Russian security apparatus isn't good these days, or alternatively either it is corrupt or penetrated by Prigozhin allies or at least by anti-Putin-regime coalitions.

To a degree Russian leaders have indulged themselves in a charade of empire, putting on the emperor's clothes perhaps but not knowing how to execute effective policies.  Something is surely rotten in Moscow, and we will have to wait and see what happens in the days ahead.

My dear brother-in-law, a great lawyer who follows the news and often has great insights, wrote me an email after this appeared. He said, “It is hard to know who to root for” between Putin and Prigozhin.

This is what I wrote back.

“I would never root for Prigozhin.  He is erratic, mentally ill, extremely dangerous and reckless.  While Putin won't win any awards from anyone, he is at least stable and generally reliable.  When you are dealing with a foreign power armed to the teeth with nuclear weapons, you want stability, reliability and predictability.  

Should Prigozhin win, we are in terrible trouble.”

My brother-in-law doesn’t agree. He says Putin is just as bad.

But I didn’t say Putin was good. Unfortunately because we have cut Russia off from any conceivable dialogue, we can’t talk to him or measure his responses. Very bad situation all around.