On June 24, Vladimir Putin’s ultimate claim to be, as he imagines, one of the historic rulers of his country collapsed. A band of armed mercenaries swept through the country almost unopposed, covering some 750 kilometers in one day, seizing two major cities, coming within 200 kilometers of Moscow, and then retreating unscathed.
Putin has long since failed as a reformer, and today he reigns over a state of increasing corruption and economic stagnation; he has been unable to turn Russia into anything more than a supplier of hydrocarbons just as the oil and gas era is winding down. His failure as a great military leader is becoming more evident, 16 months after the start of an invasion of Ukraine that he hoped to finish in a matter of days, but which has become a quagmire. Now, moreover, he has shown that he cannot even fulfill the first and greatest responsibility of a top leader: guaranteeing the security of the State.
Whether Putin’s downfall comes soon, months or years from now, he has already revealed himself to be a clumsy character. He is not a tsar, just the ringleader in a land of thugs turned into pure facade, which is what he has reduced to Mother Russia. And not only that, but, in a world where power is everything, he now looks like a weakened thug.
Likewise, the Wagner mutiny sums up the rotten state created by Putin. In the midst of a dispute with his rivals in the regular army, Putin decreed that Wagner would come under the direct control of the Defense Ministry. That subservience threatened to destroy Prigozhin’s power base, which rioted amid virulent protests against Putin’s ill-conceived war, the incompetence of the Russian army and the losses suffered by his militia in Ukraine. For all Prigozhin’s brutality, it was a truth that cut through the hollow Kremlin propaganda.
Even more surprisingly, Prigozhin has portrayed Putin as out of touch. The mutiny seems to have caught the Kremlin by surprise, so corroded are the intelligence agencies under the presidency of a former spy. On the morning of June 24, a shocked Putin branded the creature a traitor of his own and vowed that he would be punished. However, hours later, he agreed to allow Prigozhin to go to Belarus with impunity and take Wagner’s troops with him.
Putin has created a one-man government, but he doesn’t seem to have been able to command loyalty. Although support for Prigozhin was not massive, neither was support for Putin, either on the streets or among the political and military elites. For 24 frantic hours, Russia remained silent and paralyzed, waiting to see which way the wind would blow.
Optimists will interpret Putin’s weakness as proof that his rule is doomed. I wish it was like that. The reality is that despots, even weak ones, can survive for a long time if there is no obvious alternative and if they continue to have plenty of weapons at their disposal and the ruthlessness to use them. Just look at Alexandr Lukashenko in neighboring Belarus or Bashar al-Assad in Syria.
However, there are two additional factors working against Putin. The first is the war itself. The Ukrainian counteroffensive continues to make progress. Although progressing more slowly than expected, it is reducing the territorial gains made by Russia since February 2022 and, in some places, even recapturing ground taken in the first Russian incursion in 2014.
Putin’s theory of victory is that Russia can out-expect the West. If Ukraine fails to consolidate the gains it needs (and the key is to disrupt Russia’s land bridge with Crimea), Western support could start to crack. Now, Putin’s theory seems less and less plausible. Yes, it is true that Russia has succeeded in harming Ukraine; but far from being conquered, the country has forged itself as a nation and is on its way to becoming a member of the European Union and perhaps NATO as well. And far from Putin’s vision of Western disorder, too, NATO has expanded to now include Finland and soon include Sweden; In addition, European defense spending has increased and dependence on Russian energy has also been eliminated.
On the other hand, the loss of more than 100,000 Russians, between dead and wounded, allows little to present as success, not even the best Kremlin propagandists. The story is, rather, the need for new sacrifices. Every bad news that comes to Russia from the front adds pressure on Putin. That is why the counteroffensive is so important and why evidence of a split among the Russian ranks is so welcome.
Putin’s second problem is the economy. Last year it held up quite well thanks to oil and gas prices, which soared as the war raged. Oil shipments have continued, and the state continues to have plenty of cash at its disposal. Growth has slowed, but a full-scale economic crisis does not seem likely, at least this year.
However, Putin does not have the resources for a new major offensive. Russia’s gas revenues have plummeted (it has, after all, cut off supplies to its best customer), and the world price of oil has also fallen. The gap between government spending (including the huge costs of war) and revenue is widening, forcing Russia to draw on its sovereign wealth fund. The ruble has lost almost 40% of its value in the last year. China has bought Russian oil at a discount, but has not so far supplied large quantities of weapons.
Putin seems intent on restoring his authority through purges and savage repression. However, sooner or later, he will lose the ability to get around problems. The world has to be prepared for that moment. Among the many possible outcomes, the collapse of order in a country with more than 4,000 nuclear warheads would be terrifying. Now, what Putin has shown is that a corrupt, one-man government is no way to run a superpower. For Russia, the path back to order and sanity will be dangerous; But as long as Putin wears the crown and his soldiers dream of imperial rule over Ukraine, that journey can’t even begin.
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Translation: Juan Gabriel López Guix
