Geopolitics invites us not to exaggerate the importance of the human factor. Yes, in today’s Russia, Vladimir Putin is a decisive figure. But it is not decisive. In other words: the wind of history would not change direction if, instead of Putin, the Russian leader was someone else. Russian culture is imperial. It was with Ivan the Terrible, Catherine the Great and Joseph Stalin. It wants to be again.
The order imposed by ex-police Putin, based on an iron hierarchy, has allowed Russia to get out of the economic doldrums and recover a certain imperial initiative (oil, gas, Syria, Libya, presence in many African countries). Several opinion studies cited by Limes magazine agree on one fact: the majority of Russians support the war. In Russia, resentment against the West is widespread. Despite the fascination that Western luxury causes among the tycoons, and despite the fact that this fascination translates into cultural influence on the rest of the country, one of Putin’s ideas most shared by Russians is the moral decay of the West.
The Russians know that the pact with China is weak and opportunistic, but they rely on the vast territories of Asia, Africa and Latin America, distant from the US and therefore potential allies of Russia. The main agent of this geopolitical battle that Russia is trying around the world is the revolted Yevgeny Prigozhin. If Putin is icy, contained, implacable, Prigozhin is chatty, eccentric and very violent. But both share the same national and strategic vision. Even more: if Putin is a Fouché-style politician (who disables enemies with information and control), Prigojin is a self-made man of sickly aggression, capable of killing prisoners with blows of a hammer. Many of Wagner’s videos reveal a primal cruelty.
Yevgeny Prigozhin seemed to us an extravagant fellow. We have discovered that it has unquantifiable power, with tentacles around the world: military, economic and cultural (disinformation manufacturer). He has always avoided attacking Putin. His reckless adventure is the culmination of his insults to the high command of the army. He wanted to make his own, from within the Putinist system, the fight against corruption, which has led so many Russian opponents to prison. But above all he is a nationalist. It is proud to be financing the reproduction of the great basilica of Saint Sophia in the village of Godenovo, where a 15th century cross is preserved, a symbol of the legacy of the Byzantine Empire in Russia. A cross that embodies the myth of Russia as the Third Rome. Russians share myths, but are distrustful of those in command: they know that any change at the top changes nothing at the bottom. Hence the indifference with which they have contemplated Prigozhin’s coup d’état, the military version of Trump.
Coming from Bakhmut, where so much blood has been spilled, Prigojin wanted to make the jump to politics by promoting the “second front”: internal cleansing. He wanted an austere, militarized Russia. Looks like he lost. It has highlighted not only the weakness of Putin, but the weakness of an empire, which can be contradicted from within. Prigozhin has agreed with the centenarian Henry Kissinger in a disturbing prophecy: the third world war is approaching. To think that nuclear weapons can fall into the hands of bandits like him makes the earth tremble. The Russian empire, sandwiched between China and the USA, does not manage to be completely reborn, but, like the wounded whale, it is able to drag the whole world as it sinks.
