In his latest piece, Eamon Driscoll examines Wagner PMC leader Yevgeniy Prigozhin’s route from ex-convict to mercenary leader, and what his death means for Putin’s grip on power in Russia.
Perhaps the most interesting 24 hours since the beginning of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine occurred on June 23rd, 2023, when Yevgeniy Prigozhin, the modern “Condottiere” leader of the Wagner Private Military Company, restaurateur, and ex-convict, conducted his so-called “March for Justice”. On that day the world watched as Prigozhin’s men took Rostov-on-Don while being welcomed by Russian citizens (who seemed to agree that the war in Ukraine was being badly waged). This rare outburst of opposition to the Kremlin went largely unpunished, until August 23rd, two months to the day since the March for Justice. The following is a transcript of Prigozhin’s messages on Telegram on the day of the march, courtesy of Russian opposition website Meduza:
June 23 21:09 Moscow Time
We have been deceived. We were ready to make concessions to the Ministry of Defense, to surrender our weapons, to find a solution on how we would continue to defend the country. But these scum did not calm down. Today they launched rocket attacks on our rear camps. A huge number of fighters, our comrades-in-arms, died.
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June 23 a little later
The evil that the military leadership of the country bears must be stopped. I ask you not to resist. We will deal with those who destroy Russian soldiers and return to the front. Justice in the troops will be restored, and after that – justice for all of Russia.
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June 23, a little later
Shoigu cowardly fled from Rostov like a woman. This creature will be stopped.
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June 23, in a few more minutes
There are 25 thousand of us, and we are going to figure out why chaos is happening in the country.
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June 23, a little more time has passed
This is not a military coup. This is a march of justice.
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June 24 03:20
The conjectures that say that we are now preventing someone at the front from fighting are conjectures. We prevent the criminals who destroyed about a hundred thousand Russian soldiers from saving their ass. Gerasimov and Shoigu.
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June 24, morning
We want to get the Chief of the General Staff and Shoigu. While they are gone, we block Rostov and go to Moscow.
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June 24, a few hours later
The president was deeply mistaken. No one is going to turn themselves in at the request of the president, the FSB or anyone else.
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June 24 20:25
PMC Wagner wanted to disband. We went to the “march of justice”. In a day we walked, reaching 200 kilometers to Moscow. During this time, we have not shed a single drop of the blood of our fighters. Now is the moment when blood can be shed. Realizing all the responsibility, we deploy our columns and go back to the field camps.
The rapid change of heart stunned just about everyone who was observing. Wagner forces were advancing through Voronezh and were very nearly in Moscow Oblast, with only lightly-armed Rosgvardia and FSB units between them and the Kremlin. Meanwhile the Chechens under Ramzan Kadyrov proved their loyalty, as did every regional governor (appointed by Putin). The generals appeared to side with Putin, except for one – Surovikin, who was coincidentally removed as head of Russian aerospace forces on the same day Prigozhin’s plane fell from the sky.
As the dust settled, there was always a lingering thought that Prigozhin was living on borrowed time. Putin has always been known to be cold and calculating, and considering the number of activists who have met an untimely end after falling out of a balcony, that was the expected conclusion to Prigozhin’s saga. Instead, his plane was shot out of the sky over Tverskaya Oblast with photos and videos showing possible puncture holes in the fuselage (below).
Prigozhin’s path to mutiny began in the dying days of the USSR. Released from prison in 1990 after serving 9 years of a 12 year prison sentence, he started working in the grocery store business. Swept up by the transition from Marxism-Leninism to chaos-capitalism, he became a stakeholder of the first grocery store chain in St Petersburg, as well as the first casinos in the city. At the time, Vladimir Putin was chairman of the supervisory board for casinos and gambling – a good way to build a fortune in the turbulent 1990s. In 1995, he started opening restaurants, which became some of the most prestigious in At Petersburg. His second restaurant, Noviyy Ostrov (New Island) was modelled on Parisian restaurants along the Seine, and hosted a meeting of Putin and George W Bush in 2002. Over time, his connections to Putin got closer and closer – he received the contract to provide meals for the Russian army, and hosted banquets at the Kremlin. Thus he received the nickname “Putin’s Chef”.
It was in 2014 that Wagner was formed to support separatist forces in the Donbas. Officially the leader was Dmitry Utkin, Prigozhin’s head of security, who was also on board the plane with Prigozhin on September 23rd. Utkin had commanded a Spetznaz unit and had the military experience and credentials that Prigozhin lacked. Its operations in the Donbas were focused on supporting the separatist units, though Wagner did get involved in politics in the Luhansk People’s Republic, seemingly to ensure that the results of a 2017 coup in the LPR were favourable to the Kremlin.
Expanding from its role in the Donbas and Crimea, Wagner had been involved in the Syrian Civil War, operating in conjunction with both Russian and Syrian government forces. Putin wanted Russian involvement limited to air power, but with Syrian government forces on the brink of collapse in 2015, Wagner stepped in and provided the essential ground strength to hold off the Free Syrian Army, Peshmerga, and the Islamic State. In return, Prigozhin demanded the Syrian government give Wagner 25% of production of gas, oil, and phosphates from areas liberated or protected by Wagner.
In one of its most infamous engagements, on February 7th 2018, Wagner soldiers attacked an outpost of American Marines and Green Berets, losing badly at a time when there was concern that the conflict in Syria could turn into a wider conflict between Russia and the US. And prior to the mutiny, plans were in the works for Syrians to be recruited into Wagner for operations in Syria, Africa, and Ukraine. After the mutiny, and perhaps influenced by their poor historic performance, Assad had to choose between the Kremlin and Wagner, and chose the Kremlin.
In Africa, Wagner supports governments in Central African Republic, Libya, Mali, and Sudan against threats to the regimes, ranging from simple training of local troops and suppression of dissent, like in Sudan, through to more active operations, such as fighting the Islamic State in Mozambique. Again, there is profit to be made here; Sudan’s gold exports to Russia flowed through Wagner, and in CAR, Wagner receives unrestricted logging rights and control of the Ndassima gold mine. In Libya, Wagner supported the Libyan National Army, providing training, military support, and equipment, and enjoyed control over a network of military and air bases in the country and therefore in a prime position to influence oil production. Following the coup in Niger, the junta sought support against a potential ECOWAS intervention action from Wagner; many Russian flags were seen among the crowds celebrating the junta.
Despite its unusually advanced global reach, Wagner is not unique; in total there are 27 private military companies operating in and on behalf of Russia (including those supposedly affiliated with Gazprom and even the Orthodox church). Wagner is, however, the most well-known, and the most involved in the war in Ukraine.
Aftermath of the Mutiny
For two months it appeared that there was no punishment for marching on Moscow and demanding the removal of Minister of Defence Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff Gerimasov. During the March, Putin looked fragile, fleeing Moscow for his palace on Lake Valdai, while Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko – seen as something of a lapdog – stepped up and convinced Prigozhin to stop. At that point the historical analogy became less Caesar crossing the Rubicon and more Attila meeting Pope Leo, and Prigozhin became a marked man. Originally slated for exile in Belarus, he made an appearance (albeit separately from Putin) when various African leaders came to visit Russia, and as recently as two days before his death put out a video calling for recruits to join Wagner in tropical Africa before the Russian winter set in.
Putin’s overarching principle is statism, and the preservation of his own life and position. Everything in Russia orbits him. But in this position he is vulnerable to threats from everywhere. Prigozhin’s March for Justice put these vulnerabilities on display for the world to see, and Putin ran away. But, given time, he was able to consolidate his hold on power, let Prigozhin believe all was forgiven, and then plot his revenge.
Throughout this war, there has been a focus on how fragile Putin is in the Kremlin, how weak or strong his hold on power may be in reality. There is a sense, based in Russian history, that the blood spilt in Ukraine, with the death count now far exceeding those lost in a decade of war in Afghanistan, that Putin would be overthrown by those who either sought the end of the war and a return to the international community, or those who wanted to double-down and go for total war in Ukraine and victory at any cost. There is a common link drawn between Putin and Hitler, but the danger is that Putin is actually more of a “Von Hindenburg”, holding together the increasingly agitated and extreme spheres of Russian society.
Totalitarian states all fall victim to the same problem: any challenge to the way things are done is inherently a challenge to the regime. This stifles innovation, and it has stifled the Russian war effort. Prigozhin, perhaps correctly, identified the root of many problems. He sought to remove Shoigu and Gerasimov from their positions, while claiming that he did not seek to challenge Putin. Nevertheless, challenging the military is inherently a challenge of Putin, and Prigozhin was a dead man walking the moment he stopped his March. Had he succeeded, then Putin’s legitimacy would be deeply fractured, as an oligarch would be able to force change by marching on the capital. Instead, Putin is now much more secure in his position now than he was two months ago, but still weaker than he was before the March.
Ultimately, the war in Ukraine will be ended as much by politics as by military victory or defeat. Putin is trying to wait out the West, hopeful that the democratic timelines are shorter than the totalitarian ones. The 2024 US presidential election campaign is just kicking off, and if Biden loses in his re-election bid, then a Republican president may decide to draw down Ukrainian military aid. But that is more than a year away, and there is no guarantee for the Kremlin that better days are ahead. And as the sanctions continue to hobble the Russian economy, and drones continue to fall on cities both in Russia and in Crimea, Putin’s reach is getting smaller. His value as an ally to Beijing is getting smaller. War weariness will set in, and the oligarchs will want their assets unfrozen. Putin’s timeline is getting shorter. The recent commitment by several European allies to provide F-16s to Ukraine is demonstrating that longer-term support to Kyiv is likely to endure.
As of yet there is no confirmation of who pulled the trigger; perhaps there never will be. It is possible that this was a move made by Ukrainian secret service or special forces, or someone in opposition looking to spread chaos in Russia. But all the signs point to the Kremlin, until we find conclusive evidence to the contrary. If Putin did order the aircraft destroyed, it bodes poorly for his reputation as a reliable deal-maker. While it would not be surprising that the President – who once described betrayal as unforgivable – ordered an assassination, coming so soon after the Lukashenko-brokered deal, it undermines his reliability as a counterparty. Zelenskyy will likely now have even less confidence in the logic of trusting Putin in any peace deal.
Though the world would have liked Putin gone, there is at least a small sigh of relief that for the time being, the most hawkish elements of Russia’s Siloviki – those that favour total war – remain contained. For now, Russia remains in the balance, facing complete systemic collapse if the war is not won soon. Despite Ukrainian gains in the counteroffensive, Russian defensive lines are strong, and its minefields are dense. Russian victory of a sort can still happen if the West loses interest, and this is now what everything hinges on.
Whether he is Hitler or Von Hindenburg, we can stop Putin by providing Ukraine with what it asks for, as quickly as possible. Air power is the most needed tool, and the Netherlands and Denmark have already committed F-16s to Ukraine. The alternative is another frozen conflict between two nations, once brothers, now bitter enemies.
Suggested books for in-depth reading on this topic:
- Security Beyond the State: Private Security in International Politics (Rita Abrahamsen & Michael C. Williams)
- The Modern Mercenary: Private Armies and What They Mean for World Order (Sean McFate)
- The Dragons and the Snakes: How the Rest Learned to Fight the West (David Kilcullen)
- Putin’s Wars: From Chechnya to Ukraine (Mark Galeotti)
Additional geopolitical reading suggestions can be found on our 2023 reading list.
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Eamon Driscoll is a graduate of the University of Illinois and postgraduate of Geopolitics, Territory and Security at King’s College, London. Eamon focuses on issues in Russia and the wider Commonwealth of Independent States, which has furnished him with extensive experience on the topic of breakaway states. His current academic focus is on the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad and how its unique position has forced the region to develop differently from other Russian territories, especially in the shadow of the ongoing crisis in Ukraine.
Cover Image: Russian government image
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