Geopolitics invites us to relativize the human factor. Yes, Vladimir Putin’s personality is decisive in that Russian historical moment. But he is not decisive. That is to say: the wind of history would not change direction if, instead of Putin, the leader was someone else. Russian culture is imperial. He was with Ivan the Terrible, Catherine the Great and Joseph Stalin. He wants to be again.
The order imposed by ex-policeman Putin, based on an iron hierarchy, has allowed Russia to get out of the mess and recover a certain imperial initiative (oil, gas, Syria, Libya, presence in many African countries). Several opinion polls cited by Limes magazine agree on one fact: most Russians support the war. In Russia, resentment against the West is widespread. Despite the fascination that Western luxury provokes among tycoons and despite the fact that this fascination translates into cultural influence on the rest of the country, one of the ideas of Putin most shared by Russians is the moral decadence of the West.
The Russians know that the pact with China is weak and opportunistic, but they trust in forging alliances in the vast territories of Asia, Africa and Latin America, distanced from the US. The main agent in this geopolitical battle that Russia is waging around the world is the insurgent Yevgeny Prigozhin. If Putin is icy, restrained, implacable, Prigozhin is talkative, bizarre and violent. Both share the same national and strategic vision. Even more: if Putin is a Fouche-style politician (who deactivates enemies with information and control), Prigozhin is a sickly aggressive self-made man who can kill prisoners with a hammer. Wagner’s videos reveal a primitive cruelty.
Yevgeny Prigozhin seemed like an extravagant fellow. We have discovered that he has unquantifiable power, with tentacles all over the world: military, economic and cultural (he is a great manufacturer of disinformation). He has always avoided attacking Putin. His reckless adventure is the culmination of his insults to the high command of the army. He leads, from within the Putinist system, the fight against corruption, which has led so many opponents to jail. He is, above all else, an ultranationalist. He boasts that he is financing a reproduction of the great basilica of Hagia Sophia in the small town of Godenovo, which houses a 15th-century cross, a symbol of the heritage of the Byzantium empire in Russia. A cross that embodies the myth of Russia as the Third Rome. The Russians share myths, but they are skeptical of their elites: they know that changes from above do not change anything from below. Hence the indifference to the Prigozhin coup, the military version of Trump.
Coming from Bakhmut, where so much blood has been spilled, Prigozhin intended to make the leap into politics by promoting a “second front”: internal cleansing. He wanted an austere and militarized Russia. He seems to have lost; although he has revealed not only Putin’s weakness, but that of an empire that can be fought from within. Prigozhin coincided with the centenary Henry Kissinger in a disturbing prophecy: the third world war is coming. He shudders to think that nuclear weapons could fall into the hands of bandits of his ilk. The Russian empire, sandwiched between China and the US, is not truly reborn, but, like the wounded whale, it is capable of dragging down the entire world as it sinks.
