Prigozhin

• Prigozhin, as leader of the notorious Wagner Group, had been the point man for Russia in Africa since Wagner first began operations on the continent in 2017.
• More than a single entity, the Wagner Group is an amalgamation of shell companies deploying paramilitary forces, disinformation and political interference in Ukraine, Syria and Africa.
• Its leaders have been sanctioned by 30 countries for the group’s destabilising activities.
• Prigozhin advanced Russian influence in Africa by propping up politically isolated and unpopular authoritarian leaders.

Maintaining Wagner without Prigozhin

• It is no surprise that Russia would want to keep the Wagner enterprise going.
• In Mali, Wagner is linked to more than 320 incidents of human rights abuses and hundreds of civilian deaths.
• Wagner has also been accused of driving away local communities where it has secured mining concessions, effectively annexing African territory.
• But this will change when it owns the repressive tactics Wagner has deployed.

Reassessments in Africa

• Russia’s reach in Africa may be exceeding its grasp, however.
• There is a growing awakening on the continent of how little Russia actually brings to Africa in terms of investment, trade, jobs creation or security.
• Russia pulled out of the Black Sea grain deal that had enabled 33 million tonnes of grain to get from Ukraine to Africa and other parts of the world.
• This disregard, coupled with recognition that Russia offers relatively little to Africa, contributed to only 17 African heads of state attending the St. Petersburg summit.
• Russia’s lawlessness at home and abroad is bringing into sharp focus what his world order would look like.

• This is because Russian history has swung back and forth between chaos and autocracy, which have become mutually reinforcing symptoms of the same historical condition.
• Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin has come to symbolise a new cycle of this history taking place in Russia today.
• Whether or not Prigozhin may have exposed Putin’s vulnerabilities, history suggests that what is to come could well be worse.
• By referencing the smuta Putin was reminding Russians of the profound dangers of dissent – and of his mandate to suppress it.

The gathering of the lands

• The campaign, begun under his predecessor Ivan III (“Ivan the Great”), is known as the “Gathering of the Lands”.
• Ever since, Russian leaders have perpetuated the idea that Russia must dominate its peripheral lands as a defensive act of national survival.
• The terror he wrought on his people, economy and lands through years of war and repression sowed the seeds for the smuta to come.

Boris Godunov

• Boris Godunov was inspired by a period of crisis that forms the bedrock of Russia’s national mythology.
• Pushkin’s play tells the story of Boris Godunov, a Russian nobleman who came to power at the end of the 16th century during the “Time of Troubles”, the first period of smuta – a succession crisis that began in 1598 with the death of Tsar Fyodor I, the last of Russia’s founding Rurikid dynasty.
• When Fyodor died childless with no appointed heir, his brother-in-law Boris seized the throne, becoming Russia’s first non-Rurikid Tsar.
• Pushkin’s play ends as Boris, haggard in the face of increasing dissent, dies as a result of foul play.

Smuta

• Otrepyev was crowned Tsar Dmitry I, but his reign lasted less than a year.
• Over the following eight years a brutal struggle for sovereignty took hold.
• The smuta thus ended with the founding of a new autocratic bloodline that would rule and expand the Russian Empire for the next 300 years.
• It has been used to justify the absolutism and revanchism of Russian leaders from Tsars through to Soviet Commissars and modern-day politicians.

Divine right

• Russian Tsars were legitimised by the myth of divine right, meaning their power and authority as “Guardian of Holy Russia” was derived from God, rather than the Russian people.
• The General Secretary of the Communist Party was vested by the laws of History to lead Russians and their Soviet comrades along the true path to their glorious future.
• Putin has made it his spiritual mission to shield the Russia from the chaos of democratic and liberal freedoms.
• Read more:
  'Today is not my day': how Russia's journalists, writers and artists are turning silence into speech

The roots of Russian silence

• All he asked for in return was “unity”, which in Russian is a byword for passivity and acquiescence.
• The passivity of the Russian people often baffles the Western world, particularly in response to the war in Ukraine, which is being waged in their name.
• Pushkin describes the narod – the Russian people – as “obedient to the suggestion of the moment, deaf and indifferent to the actual truth, a beast that feeds upon fables”.
• The truth is that the Russian ruler’s prerogative as tsar-batiushka or “Father Tsar” can only hold sway over an acquiescent, even infantilised realm.
• An old question arises: will the Russian people remain silent?

• Confirmation of Prigozhin’s likely demise came in the form of announcements by Russia’s authorities and a Telegram channel linked to the Wagner group.
• Conveniently, there was also video footage of the plane falling out of the sky and burning on the ground.
• With him on the aircraft was Dmitry Utkin, widely considered to be his second in command at the Wagner Group.
• The deaths of other top Wagner personnel in the crash spell the likely end of the group in its current form.

Putin’s purges

• The list includes figures such as Alexei Navalny (who survived novichok poisoning), former deputy prime minister Boris Nemtsov, anti-corruption lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, and journalist Anna Politkovskaya.
• Meanwhile, some regime critics may have thought themselves to be beyond his reach in the UK or other countries, have also been disposed of.
• Putin’s message here has been clear for two decades: opposition will not be tolerated and will probably have fatal consequences.
• Other officials, considered close to Prigozhin, including the deputy head of military intelligence, Vladimir Alexeyev, are still unaccounted for.

Back to business as usual?

• This is not surprising, given how little direct and public support Prigozhin received over the course of his mutiny.
• In this sense, Putin’s regime is still highly effective and has demonstrated its capacity to survive domestic challenges.
• But the underlying problem – a disastrous military campaign in Ukraine – has not gone away with the death of Prigozhin.

• Russian mercenary leader Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, the founder of the Wagner Group, reportedly died when a private jet he was said to be on crashed on Aug. 23, 2023, killing all 10 people on board.
• The Russian Federal Air Transport Agency confirmed that Prigozhin, who had led a brief rebellion again the Russian military two months earlier, was among the dead.
• However, Prigozhin was believed to have numerous passports, and he would compel others to travel under his name to protect him from possible attacks.

Who was – or is – Prigozhin?

• He was a petty criminal who, after serving nine years in a Soviet prison, became a hot dog vendor and eventually owned elegant restaurants and a catering service.
• He was best known as the rich and connected leader of the Wagner group, a private military force with links to the Russian government.
• In June, Prigozhin orchestrated what was effectively a revolt against Russia’s government.

What was his relationship with President Vladimir Putin?

• An oligarch, Prigozhin was thought to be close to the Russian leader.
• He was called “Putin’s chef” due to the services he provided the Kremlin and the personal touches he employed when Putin dined in his restaurants.
• In June, when he launched his mutiny against Moscow, Prigozhin must have realized he had gone too far with his public rebukes.
• The only general he admired, Sergey Surovikin, released a video message telling him to stand down and to “obey” Putin.

Why do you think Putin’s opponents, many of whom are dead or imprisoned, have met so much misfortune?

• Indeed, the surprise was that Putin dropped charges and let him go, albeit to Russia’s vassal ally, Belarus.
• But many believe, including me, that Prigozhin was destined to eventually meet the fate of others who have crossed Putin.

Would Prigozhin’s death change anything for US policy toward Putin and Russia?

• In the end, unless Prigozhin’s rebellion does turn out to have planted the seeds of real resistance, I don’t believe his death is likely to change the course of the Ukraine war or U.S. policy toward Putin and Russia.
• However, it’s likely to take Wagner troops, which had been among Russia’s most effective, out of the conflict in Ukraine.
• Yet the Ukraine war has become America’s war, and the U.S. government doesn’t want to see Ukraine lose it – even if it doesn’t win dramatically.