The Soviet system was marked by great corruption and huge inefficiencies. Russia today rivals the Soviet Union in corruption. For a while it didn’t even have bullets, but while that has been fixed, there are many other “system” problems plaguing the Russian government.
The main political game
They were first seen when the Russian army invaded Ukraine and made one blunder after another, seeing its armored forces hit by the Ukrainians. It turned out that the Russian army could not rise to the occasion. He was slow moving, not well trained or guided.
Prigozhin (left) and Putin (in the photo above) had a long-standing partnership and it apparently took a lot of mediation for the Russian president to finally turn against him. After very heavy losses in men and equipment, many generals and senior colonels were replaced, and the Russian army began to take action and learn how to fight a modern war. This explains why they successfully resisted the Ukrainian counterattack.
Russia’s main political game is helping your opponents out of their hot tubs, throwing them out of windows, or poisoning them, or blowing up their cars, or shooting them in the street.
These actions seem to be the norm and are not at all flattering for any government that wants to be seen as credible and accountable. The perpetrators are almost never caught or punished, probably because the killings are all sanctioned.
In the early stages
Today we are in the early stages of an insurgency by the Wagner group against the Russian military and the Putin government. Her forces advanced unopposed into Rostov and now face the forces of the Russian army.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder and leader of Wagner, is calling for the overthrow of the Russian government and is said to be moving his forces towards Moscow.
He claims he has internal support for his business, and it remains to be seen if this is true. He himself had become increasingly volatile in recent months, and it is indeed surprising that he had not been arrested and imprisoned or, in the current Russian political custom, “purged”.
“Betrayal”
Putin addressed the nation and called Wagner’s operation “treason” and a threat to Russia.
It is difficult to explain, but it appears that the Russian president was using Prigozhin against the leadership of the Russian military, including his defense minister, Sergei Shoigu.
Exactly why he did this is not entirely clear, but perhaps he was worried about a military coup against him and needed Wagner’s owner to support his leadership.
Putin and Prigozhin had a long working relationship and it apparently took a lot of mediation for the Russian president to finally turn on him, claiming he was “stabbed in the back” and that his attack amounted to treason.
Wagner forces have so far played a large role in Russian military-political initiatives in Ukraine, Africa and the Middle East. They achieved, especially in the long battle for Bakhmut, a great “Russian” victory but really a Wagnerian victory (please also read the analysis titled “The “Timeless lesson” of Military Outsourcing“).
The opposition to the military and the similarities with the US
The US faced similar problems with Blackwater, the American private military group that even provided security for State Department employees.
The company eventually collapsed after serious human rights violations, including the shooting of innocent civilians. In 2020, President Trump pardoned its contractors who were jailed for massacring civilians in Iraq.
The great issue for Russia was the attempt to place Wagner under the command of the Russian army. Prigozhin refused to agree to this, after months of infighting between the two sides.
In short, he saw his private army as independent and accountable only to himself. This is the root cause of the conflict now unfolding.
It is too early to say what will happen in the now bloody conflict between the Russian military and government on one side and Wagner and her leader on the other.
Prigozhin is a talented propagandist and knows how to exploit social media. He even reportedly hacked Russian television to promote his message.
The gaps… in the security mechanism
On the other side of the coin, what is also happening is that Russian internal security and Russian political leaders have failed to understand the seriousness of the threat they are facing.
One explanation is that the Russian security apparatus is not committed these days, or alternatively is either corrupt or has been eroded by allies of Prigozhin or at least by alliances against the Putin regime.
To some extent, Russian leaders are content with a mock empire, perhaps wearing the clothes of the emperor, but without knowing how to implement effective policies. Something is definitely rotten in Moscow and we will have to wait the next few days to see what happens.
