Angry Planet - A Closer Look at the Wagner Mutiny

Episode Date: July 3, 2023

Nobody outside of the Kremlin—and maybe inside the Kremlin, too—knows exactly what happened over the last weekend. We do know that Yevgeny Prigozhin led something that looked like a rebellion against Vladimir Putin’s government. Columns of troops and tanks turned toward the motherland and elements of the Wagner Group made it inside of 200 miles from Moscow. What did Prigozhin really want? And what happened to end the crisis? And is the crisis really over?Joining us today is Mark Katz of George Mason University. He’s a longtime Russia watcher and a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, in addition to his teaching duties.Angry Planet has a Substack! Join to get weekly insights into our angry planet and hear more conversations about a world in conflict.https://angryplanet.substack.com/subscribeYou can listen to Angry Planet on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Love this podcast. Support this show through the ACAST supporter feature. It's up to you how much you give, and there's no regular commitment. Just click the link in the show description to support now. Hello and welcome to Angry Planet. I'm Jason Fields. And I'm Matthew Galt. Nobody outside the Kremlin, and maybe inside the Kremlin too, knows exactly what happened over the last weekend. We do know that Yvgeny Pregozhen led something that looked like a rebellion against Vladimir Putin's government. Columns of troops and tanks turned toward the motherland, and elements of the Wagner group made it inside 200 miles of Moscow. What did Progoshin really want, though, and what happened to end the crisis? And is the crisis actually really over? joining us today is Mark Katz of George Mason University.

He's a longtime Russia watcher and a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council in addition to his teaching duties. Thank you so much for joining us. Thanks for having me. Can we start with just the absolute basics? What's your view of what happened last weekend? Well, it is complicated. certainly Putin had promoted this fellow Pregojan as sort of an alternative to his state security services. Progosion built up the Wagner group.

They were able to operate sort of deniably, although everyone knew they were acting on behalf of Russia, whether in the Middle East or North Africa or elsewhere in Africa. And then, of course, with the war on Ukraine, Wagner fighters were recruited to fight against Ukraine. And Progosion went back to his own stomping grounds, the Russian prison system, to recruit there. And, you know, he appears to have been very effective, but a tremendous cough in terms of lives lost. And, you know, Putin basically, he likes to promote his rival. In other words, what he wants, he needs security services to keep the population in check, but he has to make sure that the security services aren't united and can overthrow him.

And so he promotes rivalries among them. And Wagner essentially was as a group that was created. It wasn't a state organization at all. And I think that there has been this rivalry between Progosion and the defense minister and chief of the general staff. Progosion's been, you know, criticizing them heavily. They supposedly held back on weapons supplies, ammunition supplies for Progusion. And what I believe that Progougeon was doing was that he didn't intend to overthrow Putin at all.

That what he wanted to do was to help Putin come to his senses and rid him of these bad advisors, Shogu and Gorosimov. and that then, you know, he and Putin together that they would make take care of things. But I also, you know, when Provision came out and basically criticized the whole rationale for the war, he said, you know, Ukraine was not a threat to Russia. They didn't need to be there. It was just these greedy generals who wanted to go to war. Maybe he thought that, you know, Putin can use this as an excuse.

Yeah, now I see the light thanks to you. But of course, Putin himself is intimately associated with the war. I think for Putin, this really is the central cause of his being. He believes everything he said about Ukraine being a threat and needing to be denouncedified, etc. And therefore, I think that in that pregoation in his own mind wasn't there to overthrow the government. Then basically he was, you know, he had to stop. it all felt like theater at the end of it in a way when he decided to turn around

and he was talking to Lukashenko and I'm going to go to Belarus the whole thing just felt very I don't know if staged as the right word but like a play like a very elaborate play I think it was if it was a play it was definitely ad lit plan this in advance

and it is shocking considering how Putin imprisons anyone who even slightly criticizes the war effort against Ukraine to let someone who marched on Moscow, Caesarostov fired upon regular Russian military forces to let the sky go off into exile in Belarus, apparently with his men as well, whoever wanted to go with him. This is shocking that Putin would allow this to happen. And I have a feeling that it was one of these things where everyone was being a worst-case analyst. In other words, maybe Kyrgyzhen thought that other units of the armed forces would join him on his march to Moscow.

They didn't. On the other hand, no one seemed to be stomping him. And so I think that for Putin, the idea was just, you know, get this guy out of here now. if he's losing his nerve, this is the moment to diffuse this, but that it really looks bad for Putin that this could happen. And I think that part of the reason why Prodolution didn't get as much support as he did is because he's leading Wagner against the regular military.

Now I think the door is open for a regular military commander, unit commander, if they tried something like this, Maybe they would get a lot more support. I don't know if that would happen. I don't think Putin knows either. I heard a really interesting comparison to the Yelton Revolution saying that in the early days of that attempted coup, there was the largest sick out of police and security officials of all time, that they just, nobody came to work just because they didn't want to pick a side at that point. Do you think there's something similar with the military the way they sort of sat it out?

Absolutely. Yeah. I think that they, I think that the proven thing was not to get involved. But that, you know, in retrospect, you know, I think Putin and company are going to be going over this. Who did what, when, and that they're going to be drawing lessons as to who can be considered reliable or not. and maybe these people need to be gotten rid of it. I think the problem for Putin is that can he trust anyone, anyone at all now, to replace them? I think that, you know, Putin who tends to be paranoid anyway, that he really must be very nervous right now.

Is there, sorry, go ahead. I was just going to say, is there anyone who comes to mind for you at the moment that is a potential rival? I mean, there was a lot of, I would say, junk about how Progoshan was himself a rival to Putin in the weeks leading up to this rebellion, if you want to call it that. Is there somebody? You know, it's really impossible to tell because the moment that anyone seems like a possibility, Putin will move against that person. And I think that if and when this happens, it will be a surprise move. It will be someone who has headed to you been a Putin loyalist. And it'll just be a total surprise.

As anyone who's expressing any sort of degree of independence now is probably not going to be able to operate in this manner. How long do you think Progoshan lives after this? What do you think is going to happen to him in Belarus? I just can't imagine that you let this stand. Yeah, I would think, and certainly, you know, Lukashenko has, you know, claim that, you know, Putin has talked about killing him. I would think that for Putin, in that he has a history of, you know, killing off some of his adversaries, some of his opponents,

that I would think that progosion would be very inconvenient, that I would not be surprised if there's an assassination. attempt, certainly a successful assassination of pregoision, at some point within, you know, the next few months, it'll be made to or try to be made to look like some sort of accident. A lot of Putin's opponent seem to fall out of windows somehow or other. It's really quite interesting. Maybe a poisoning, but they'll try to, yeah, I think that I would not be surprised if something like this happens. So I was sort of thinking it's interesting that Progotion knows this,

may have even participated in previous defendistrations. Who knows? Was he in such a bad situation that he just had to take this risk? I mean, why? Yeah, I think that's one of the unknowable things. In other words, he, I think he could have kept ongoing toward Moscow, that, you know, he may have succeeded. He may have even come to power for all that.

But I really believe that progogeon in his own mind was not rebelling against Putin, that he was trying to help Putin by getting rid of the defense ministry people. And when it became clear that Putin wasn't going to go along with this narrative, then he got scared. And as usual, decided that protecting himself was the highest priority. and I'm just shocked that this deal was was arranged at all, but there we are. Well, there was what? Pardon me, sorry. 30,000 men is our best guess? 30,000 soldiers.

It appears to be something like that. So the issue that apparently inflamed progoshan was the requirement that Wagner forces sign this contract, you know, subordinating themselves to the defense ministry. Now, Progogian obviously did not want to do that. That would, that would, you know, officiate his own authority. But I would have thought for a lot of individual Wagner fighters, maybe it wouldn't have been such a terrible thing. In other words, you fight for Wagner, your chance of becoming a casualty is much higher than if you're with irregular forces. So maybe if you sign this contract with irregular forces, maybe you won't, you'll be in a lesser

degree of danger. At least that's, I think, a possibility that we can't assume that all Wagner fighters are necessarily going to support pregoation. And maybe this is a way out. On the other hand, if your option is, you know, move to sunny Belarus and not fight it off, then I can understand why a lot of guys might want to go over with him. That why be on the battlefield when And there's a once in a lifetime opportunity to get out of it all together. How independent is Lukashenko? I mean, did he volunteer to step in? Was he told to broker this deal?

What do you think his real role might have been? You know, certainly the portrayal of Lukashenko is that he is subordinate to Putin. But the thing is that I think he actually exercises a lot of autonomy. that he can do a lot on his own and I think that he saw this as an opportunity certainly he himself says he spoke first to Putin

then to Progosion both of them were willing to work with him and that that gave him the opportunity to do so he's already talking about how look if Wagner guys will be useful in training Belarusian forces he also seems to indicate that

Wagner will be there at his own expense. In other words, that Belarus might be making some money off of this. Maybe he has, it's not clear at all whether Prodiction is still going to be able to control Wagner forces in the Middle East and Africa. And then they're making money through providing protection. Maybe Lukashenko wants a portion of that. And maybe it's even a degree of protection. In other words, that having Wagner guys in Bieler,

means that if Putin decides to play rough with Belarus, it won't just be Belarus in forces that we have no combat experience, but it'll be Wagner forces he might have to come up against. So I think for Lukashenko,

this isn't a bad outcome at all. Does it change his role in the world? Well, I think it does. I think that basically I think what this Ukraine war in general has done has made Russia

a little bit brought it down to the level of some of its smaller partners that it was just like Putin is now depend on Iran for arm supplies dependent on North Korea that they're now in a position

to ask more of Russia than they might have otherwise I think similarly with Lukashenko. He's done a big favor for Putin. So what Putin has wanted. Now, I think that there will be payback. One issue I think that people haven't focused on is that supposedly these Russian tactical nuclear weapons have been deployed to Belarus. The question I have is, who ultimately controls these? Now, presumably, they come with their Russian minders, but obviously there aren't going to be very many of these.

Can Lukashenko basically seize control of these tactical nuclear weapons at some point or under certain circumstances? In other words, that I don't know why Putin went to the trouble to deploy tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus and maybe just for the theater of it, that somehow this would get the West's attention. But I think that this is something else

that also gives Lukashenka more autonomy, especially autonomy via Russia. Yeah, you've got a, you've got a, we'll see how big it is, but you have a mercenary army that almost got to Moscow in a country with some tactical nukes deployed and a friendly government right there on that border with Ukraine, right? So yeah, it shuffles things in a very surreal and unpleasant. way, I think. Yeah, and I think already we're seeing that there are some Western observers who are indicating

that, you know, now we really kind of need to work with Lukashenko. In other words, that he's more of an independent factor. You know, it's one way to look at it is that he's more of a danger. Certainly the Baltic states are seeing it that way, Lithuania in particular. I think there are others who are going to think that maybe there's a lot of, a chance to, you know, even if we can distance him from Putin to some extent, that that's good enough to try for. And I'm sure Lukashenko will have every incentive to try to make everyone, whether it's Putin, whether it's Western governments, whether it's the Chinese government,

think that, you know, it's in their interests to work with Lukashenka more than anything else. How do you think Russia losing a portion of Wagner affects its war in Ukraine? It sure doesn't help. Now, there's, you know, there's, you know, been different estimates as to exactly how many Wagner forces were fighting in Ukraine. I think there were estimates like up to 30,000, even 50,000. There are some who say, well, really effectively it was like 8,000. Whatever it is.

if these guys aren't going to be joining the Russian military, that means that there are fewer people for Moscow to rely on. And the danger is that, well, you know, if the Wagner fighters can, you know, put up a fuss and leave the battlefield and go to Belarus, well, why not regular soldiers? Can they do the same thing as well? So I think that Wagner leaving the battlefield, where it was undertaking, you know, a big mission, no longer doing this. It puts pressure, more pressure on the Russian military. And the question is just how long will these individual ordinary soldiers are they going to go along with this, especially now that they've seen an example of successful defection?

Yeah, nobody, as far as we know, on the Wagner side there were very few casualties or almost none and they all got to they all they took a made they took two major Russian cities right they took Rostov and another one and then they

they got to leave with seemingly no repercussions except that you have to live in Belarus which is not at war which is not at war you don't have to fight anymore So I would think that I wouldn't be surprised if there are some generals

who feel well, maybe I'd have a better chance than pre-Gosion and if one has the possibility of also if you don't work but you can still escape, well then the cost-benefits of rebelling definitely are more in favor of rebellion. I'm not saying that it's likely or that Putin would treat others in the same way.

But I do think that this episode has opened the door to someone in the security services. And it'll have to be someone in the security services who basically agrees with Kyrgyzhen's argument. We don't need to be in Ukraine. It's not really a threat to us. But continuing this war is a threat both to Russia and to the Russian armed forces. In other words, the longer this goes on, the more men are chewed up in the meat grinder, that this is ultimately going to hurt the Russian army more than anything else. And we need to put a stop to it.

There's an interesting quote that I saw. Actually, it was Mark Galiati who was talking about, if you know Mark at all. He's been on the show a bunch. He was talking about Putin and. and some of the other players as not exactly being capable of three-dimensional chess, right? That they are not responding in necessarily the most intelligent way. They're not necessarily thinking with a lot of forethought. I mean, and I wonder how you see that.

And is Putin, I mean, it's one thing to take on small countries like you know Chechnya it's one thing to take on small countries like Chechnya it's another thing to take on Ukraine and it's another thing to send away your nuclear weapons to Belarus I mean

where do you think that was a tactical deployment yeah yeah right tactical deployment of his own demise anyway what do you think about you know Putin's capability and what we've learned.

Well, I think just the whole invasion of Ukraine was showed real stupidity. He really thought that he'd be welcomed by all right-thinking Ukrainians because, of course, they're really Russians, and they know it. And this didn't happen. And then, of course, he continued on with the conflict.

So, yeah, I think that up until then, he had been pretty careful. He chose conflicts, either that he could win quickly or that he had help. You could outsource the Chechen conflict to Kadyrov and his guys in Syria, you know, as the Iranians and their Hezbollah allies that are carrying a lot of the burden of defending Assad. Georgia was just so little. And, of course, his success in Crimea was just so over and dumb. And I think that he had the idea that, yeah, it would be just as easy.

There's lightning strike before anyone could respond. And then people would just have to deal just like they had before. And that didn't work. And partly didn't work because he had been successful in the past that people had, you know, had prepared. In other words, if he hadn't in 2014 stopped it, the Crimea and eastern Ukraine, he just tried to keep on going. Maybe he would have succeeded. But because he was successful then, in the words, the Ukrainians and even the West to a certain degree, were preparing for something to occur again.

And he had a real fight on his hands, and he's not been able to conclude it successfully. That makes me just wondering, the next question for me is, why does history repeat itself? Well, you know, it's a, I think this guy is in the bubble. and he basically he has surrounded himself with people who tell him exactly what he wants to hear and anyone who tells him different has long ago been excluded from this circle

at best so anything he thinks he's in an echo chamber and I think that it was divorced from reality very much I think like Saddam Hussein was in Kuwait people who

sort of knew about that system indicated the same thing. In other words, he was just so convinced of his own strength and his adversary's weakness that he operated on that basis. I think similar with Putin, he did the same thing, and he ultimately is hoping

that the West will be divided and will crack, we'll back down. Maybe Trump will come back into office. Of course, he's assuming even if that happens that Trump could actually change the policy. So it's, he just basically, you know, he listens to what he wants to hear. And now I think it's getting harder, though, in other words, that he's not just facing war with Ukraine.

He's facing, you know, can he trust his own security services at home? That's a far more important problem. and I think one that's not going to be going away. I think one of my biggest takeaways from learning about European history, looking at hundreds of years, is that if you exile someone at the head of a mercenary army, instead of killing them, you're going to have to fight them again later.

Like it always comes back up every single time. Yeah, I think so. I mean, you know, and I think one of the really shocking things was those images of pregosion and Rostov, And people were cheering him. People, you know, were liking. That, I think, is a real threat. Something maybe at Projurgeon himself hadn't really anticipated that ordinary Russians would see him as somehow being heroic. And this has got to, this might give him ambition, which I think is going to make it necessary for Putin to get rid of him sooner rather than later. because, yeah, if he's allowed to thrive, who knows?

And remember Lukashenko himself, you know, when this union treaty was signed in the 1990s, his idea was that, well, you know, Russia, Belarus are in this union. Yeltsin so unpopular that he, Lukashenko, would be the guy taking over. He was disabused of that under Putin. Who knows? Maybe this guy Lukashenko sees this as all. ultimately the gambit. In other words, that there'll be a lot of people in Russia who absent any other candidate.

Maybe Lukashenko could be the saint who comes in from the West and can run everything. And that, you know, these guys, I think, have outsized egos. So I would not be surprised if Lukashenko and Kregoshen, together, think of something like this. But it's funny the idea of cheering progozhen, of all the people to cheer. I mean, this is not a particularly nice guy. He's not likely to restore freedom to Russia or democracy. I mean, does that just show how much people are tired of Putin? I mean, that anybody looks good?

I think that part of it was that, you know, who did progozion rely on as fighters? prisoners. In other words, not conscripts, not draftees, not my boy, not, you know, it was, you know, these people who are no good anyway. So I think that that was something that a lot of Russians were happy about. Yeah, Grigogsia and the prisoners want to fight. That means we don't have to fight. And that's the thing that I think that is Putin's real weakness is that, you know, with everyone who flared. at the sign of the, you know, conscription last year, that there really isn't deep-seated support for this war. Not that they necessarily oppose it, but they don't want to make any sacrifices for it, that's for sure. And I think that Progosion offered people an alternative.

Yeah, here's a guy who'll carry on the fight, but not at our expense. And that, of course, with Progosion gone, you know, is that option still there? the defense ministry is now supposedly recruiting within prisons. But I think what the real fear is that, well, if they're not enough of Wagner volunteers, are they going to start conscripting people in Russia at some point? And that, I think, will be a very dangerous moment. Can we zoom out and talk about what it was like to do your job on Friday as all of this is playing out? Did you have a sense that you were watching a historical moment akin to like 1991? What were your feelings at the time?

You know, it very much reminded me of the late Gorbachev years when anything you wrote today because, you know, just became outdated tomorrow and that the sense of possibilities are now far more open. I had been studying the Soviet Union for the longest time, and not that much really changed. In other words, you had, yes, some leaders changed whatever, whether it's their foreign policy, domestic policies, everything changed or everything stayed the same. And then when Gorbachev came in and said he was going to change things, well, every previous leader had said that too. So it was very hard to believe. And so, yeah, then suddenly things did start to change and change an awful lot.

Late Gorbachev, Furley Yelsohn. But then they kind of went back to sort of the old predictable ways. And certainly under Putin, that was the case. Now, Putin is not announcing any kind of change, that's for sure. But the fact that this happened, yeah, what it shows is. that just as in the late Cold War period, Russia is not as stable a place as it once was and that anything can happen, that a new leadership could come to power, which could very well see its interests change.

You know, it doesn't seem like there's going to be a democratic revolution. Putin seems to have inoculated Russia against that with these security services. But, of course, in other democratic revolutions, it's security services. service defection is one of the key elements that is occurring. That is a possibility. But even another authoritarian leader could just decide to reverse course. In other words, that, you know, the war in Ukraine is hurting Russia. Let's put an end to this. And blame it all on Putin. And that would be popular, probably. That would be a popular position. And that, you know, I think there's a lot of Western countries who would be very happy to work with such an authoritarian Russian leader,

you know, a reasonable authoritarian, authoritarian modernizer, practical, pragmatic. We definitely work with such an actor. Might even pressure Ukraine to make some concessions, you know, for the greater good. So, you know, I think that there are now possibilities that we just haven't seen until recently. And, you know, maybe they'll come to fruition, but maybe not. No, but that's actually, it seems like, such a good point because there are parts of NATO that really are not happy with what's, you know, the stance towards Russia. I mean, they're on board, but they're sort of barely on board. You have Hungary.

You have the election in Slovakia, which I think happened over the weekend as well. I mean, anyway, I'm just saying it makes sense. I mean, the alliance is sort of barely holding on as is. I think German public opinion, in other words, that they, you know, they benefited from American protection, exported to China, and cheap Russian gas. And they like to get back to that. So, if they could get back to having a reasonable Russia, that that would be just fine with them and probably a lot of other European countries as well. So, yeah, I think that, you know, that that that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that people would actually be, uh, very much in Russia's interest to see Putin replace with someone who, you know, who's been a little more subtle in terms of, um, just behaving reassuringly, uh, that, that, that people would follow over themselves, but we have to do something to, you know, we don't want to go back to Putin. We have to, you know, so we have to make concessions to Russia.

I think that would be the natural reaction. I can even think of the people who would make such an argument. I'm to say so here. What do you think the next signs would be of a change? Is there anything that people should be looking for? Well, I think that part of it's going to be is that how do they shore up the Ukrainian front? In other words, where are the guys who are going to replace Wagner fighters going to come from? And maybe it's the Wagner fighters themselves who sign this contract.

Although, again, I think I prefer to go to Belarus myself. But that they're going to have to do more to get people in the military. And I think this is not something that's going to be popular. Also, I think that Putin may be tempted to replace a lot of the military leadership. Because I think, you know, in the postmortem on this, what he's going to go through, like, okay, yeah, no one came out and cited with Grigosian. But who did nothing? Who just stood aside? Those are people that Putin cannot trust.

You know, you leave them in office? I mean, that's almost as bad as letting Prigodian go. It's worse because they're there in Russia. on the other hand, who do you replace them with? Is there anyone really more loyal? In other words, can you trust anyone? And so what I would foresee is sort of more intensive purges and shuffling in the security service leadership. Putin going back to his own, his instinct is to play them off against each other, you know, to make sure that they can't cooperate with each other.

but I think that this is, you know, when you're fighting a war, then this means, okay, you want to keep your security services weak for your own internal purposes, but they need to be strong to fight a foreign enemy. You can't do it both ways. Either you build them up to fight the foreigners effectively, but then that risks them being strong enough to hurt you internally, or you keep them divided internally, and then that undermines their ability to fight. the external enemy. So I think this is this is a trap of his own making, which he cannot get out of. You make it sound like it's almost now we're just waiting for the rest of the dominoes to fall. Like this is probably the end of Putin. It may take a year, it may take two years.

When it happens, it will be shockingly fast, possibly. But you make it sound like this is maybe it. well I mean obviously there's probably a degree of wishful thinking in all this this is what I mean it's not just that I think this will happen it's what I want to happen and that of course is always dangerous in terms of analyzing anything so you know it might not but obviously at some point proof it does have to go what he's 70 now which is actually now that I'm almost 70 it doesn't seem so old

but he you can't stay in that position forever and you know what does he do

does he wait to be overthrown or does he decide to do a production maybe not move to the other rooms and that would really be interesting maybe to Beijing or maybe to Pyongyang

God. He may be one of the world's richest men, right? I mean, there's some thought that he really is. You have to be able to access this wealth. Yeah. Yeah. And that I think is problematic. And wherever you move, you know, your hosts are going to demand a good portion of it.

That's for sure. It's not going to be safe. So, you know, I think that, you know, here's a guy who's also worried about self-preservation. He has such an enormous ego. He sees his own survival and Russia's survival is basically one and the same. But if he comes to the understanding that he really can't trust anyone, I presume that like Kyrgyzian, he will want to save himself above anything else. He may have already been working on this.

And there might be some places that would be willing to take him. You know, just like Lukashenko took a prognosis. You know, they might find them useful. So, or, you know, well, supposedly he watches the tape of Gaddafi being killed by the mob, you know, over and over again. If that's really what he is afraid of, then I would think flight would occur to him as a way to escape from this. Now, is it that bad? Has he gotten to this point? I don't know.

But I think that here's a guy who thinks in worst case terms that he has to anticipate that maybe, you know, if he can't trust his own security people, then maybe he needs to make other arrangements. It's so hard to picture for me. It is. And I imagine, picture you. yourself in his shoes. You can't be happy. He can't be happy with the situation he is now in. He really, you know, it's nothing's happening to make him feel better, it seems to me. Yeah. These kinds of stories always end one way, though, right? Very rarely do you get to be Stalin and have everyone so cowed that you die in bed and everyone's a friend. And everyone's a

afraid to roll you over. If that's what actually happened. If that's what actually happened. It was the doctor's plot right there at the end. Maybe the doctor's got him. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, you know, like Nicholas I think, is the real model for Putin, comes in. He's very successful with his wars. Suppressing, you know, any domestic opposition. Then he gets himself involved in the Crimean War. and he bites off more than he can chew. He was in war with the Ottoman Empire, which he'd been able to deal as successfully before.

And suddenly he's also at war with Britain and France and others. But he does not stop the war. In other words, he has to basically die in office and his successor, Alexander II, extracts Russia from this. And that, I think, is a possibility. In other words, that this, Putin will keep on doing what he's doing so long as he's alive.

And so the only way to end this war will be to subtract Putin in whatever way and whether it's to overthrow him, whether he simply dies in bed, or whether he flees. And if I were Putin, I think I'd know which option I would ultimately prefer.

If dying in bed doesn't appear to be, there's sort of at some point in the future, the distant future doesn't seem like it's going to be an option than maybe fleeing might be. I mean, the Kremlin has a lot of windows. It does. Yeah, it really does. And I think that, yeah, he, I think this episode more than anything else,

as let Putin understand that he cannot completely trust his own security services. And that they are, and there's no one else. He could act to save the leader of Kazakhstan. He could act to help Lukashenko. But there's no one who can help him. I don't think the Chinese are going to be sending troops to Moscow to protect Putin. So he's on his own. Now, the real, I think the real worry is that basically he decides to unleash Armageddon.

And certainly I understand that he once said, and it's interesting, in the past, a lot of my Russian students have said, without Russia, the world need not continue. That there is this idea that if Russia isn't going to be successful, well, then there's just no reason for the world to even exist. And would he unleash some kind of Armageddon? Now, the trouble, of course, is doing this is that, you know, you don't survive yourself, that's for sure. And you also have to then, like, will the people you give the order to actually obey, you know, just as you were talking about earlier, you know, people didn't obey the orders to move against Yeltsin back in 1991. Can he be sure that such an order is a terrible thing, in other words, that if you obey it, you're probably, you're probably, probably going to be dead within, you know, an hour. Yeah.

Because what you've unleashed. So why do it? So even if he wants to, you know, let everyone die strategy, it's not clear that he can rely on his own people to unleash this. I just say this is the perfect note. I mean, unless, Matthew, you have something else. We like to go out on a downer. Yeah, we like to go out on a downer. So talking about nuclear war, the destruction of all life on the planet.

Oh, right. Well, that's the guy's after my own heart. That's, that's, right. Yeah, I believe in the power of pessimism. It doesn't tend to lead you astray. That's right. Yeah, that's the one optimistic thing about being a pessimist is that you're rarely disappointed. You're usually prepared.

That's right. There you go. Well, Marquette, thank you so much for joining us today and taking us through what we know. I mean, boy, is it complex. It is indeed. All right. Well, that's great being with you guys. And I really appreciate your inviting me on to the show.

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