Front Burner - Did the Wagner mutiny weaken Vladimir Putin?

Episode Date: July 5, 2023

After Yevgeny Prigozhin and the Wagner Group’s rebellious march towards Moscow was cut short over a week ago, questions have been swirling about how it could happen and what it reveals about Russia���s stability right now. The Kremlin and Vladimir Putin have been working in overdrive to project an image of calm and control. But behind the scenes, a top general is missing and the military is facing Ukraine’s counteroffensive without Wagner’s crucial support. Is Putin losing his grip on power? Could what happened with The Wagner Group and its leader Prigozhin end up costing Russia the war? The Financial Times’ Polina Ivanova joins us to discuss the aftermath of the mutiny and what could happen next. For transcripts of this series, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Tamara Kandaker. It's been over a week since mercenaries from Russia's Wagner Group marched on Moscow, as people all over the world watched what seemed like a coup. Now that the dust has settled and the rebellion is over,

Vladimir Putin's opponents are saying he's lost control. Yes, we see the reaction after certain Wagner steps. We see Putin's reaction. It's weak. We see he doesn't control everything. Putin doesn't control the situation in the regions. He doesn't control the security situation. But Putin is working to prove he is still in charge and has the people on his side, including yesterday at a meeting of pro-Russian world leaders. The Russian people are consolidated as never before.

The solidarity and high responsibility for the fate of the fatherland was clearly demonstrated by Russian political circles and the entire society by coming out as a united front against the attempted armed rebellion. So, is he still in control? Or did this attempted mutiny loosen his grip on power? That's what we're going to try and sort out today with Polina Ivanova, who's been covering Russia and the war in Ukraine for the Financial Times. So, Polina, since the mutiny, there has been a lot of coverage questioning and criticizing how Putin handled it, suggestions that it was weak and that the whole thing shows Putin is losing his grip on power. And I'm wondering, what's he been doing this past week to push back against that narrative? Well, he did something extraordinary. He went to Dagestan, a region in southern Russia, and he did what lots of other politicians do. He stepped out

of his vehicle impromptu, or not exactly impromptu, but came out to a group of people and was swamped in a crowd, kissed someone on the forehead, took a selfie, you know, was kind of swamped by people for all of a few minutes. But it happened. And then he got back in the car and went off. Now, that might be something that you're accustomed to seeing politicians do, but it's not something that Putin has done since the beginning of 2020. He's been very, very careful about epidemiological security since basically the COVID pandemic. So he's been a germaphobe. He's been terrified of getting close to anyone. You've seen him sitting at the end of these extraordinary long tables, you know, meeting politicians, meeting Macron,

the French president, you know, six meters apart. Making ministers quarantine for weeks just to meet him. So for him to go out into a crowd like that is a really radical step. It's really the first time he's done that in years and there was good reason for him to take this um to take this risk and that was that he needed a show of unity he needed to show that despite this mutiny despite this armed rebellion which the whole country noticed um the people were behind him and it was a signal both to kind of just you know to the general public this is still me i'm still the same i'm still the same president i still have this

massive support behind me but it was also a way to signal to the elites especially elites who have been grumbling even in public who have kind of been showing some not, you know, it's not been a total display of unity on the part of the elite since the armed rebellion. It was a signal to them to say, look, guys, I have the people of Russia behind me. So you might want to think again before you before you criticize or before you kind of display anything other than 100% loyalty to me. Interesting. Yeah, I want to talk about the reaction from the elites in a bit and kind of unpack how different factions of society have been feeling in the aftermath of this. But before we get to that, Yevgeny Progozhin, on the surface, it looks like, has gotten away with this, at least for now.

But bring me up to speed on what's happened with the other players here. So when he staged this rebellion, he was demanding that Putin get rid of two men, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Russia's top general, Valery Gerasimov. And he was blaming them for botching the invasion. He accused them of conspiring to attack and destroy Wagner. Do we know what's happened to them since last week? There have been a lot of rumors swirling around. Immediately after the rebellion, there were rumors swirling around about intense interrogations happening inside the security services, a real kind of test of loyalty across the security elite, which is, you know,

really fractured. So there's the army, but there's all these other institutions and the defense ministry and all these other kinds of parts of the security state. And we know that, for example, we had a scoop at the FT that Sergei Suravikin, who was at one point the leader of the Ukraine invasion and is a very kind of senior general, he ran Russia's war effort in Syria back in the day, known as General Armageddon, was in fact detained and intensely interrogated. And we don't know what's happened to him since. Sorovkin was once Putin's leading general in Ukraine, but hasn't been seen since this video from the early hours of Saturday. Holding a gun, but apparently reading from a script,

he pleads with Wagner mercenaries to end their uprising. But the irony is that though, you know, Prokofiev railed against the people that you mentioned, so the defense minister, Sergei Shoigu, and the head of the army, the head of the general staff, Valery Gerasimov. What was the point of the war? The war was needed for the self-promotion of a bunch of bastards to show off what a strong army it is so that Defense Minister Sergei Shogu gets a marshal. Though he railed at these generals,

they're not the ones who have been under investigation since. The people who have been under investigation are. The people who have been under investigation are those who've been close to Prigozhin, because obviously they are the ones who are suspected of disloyalty, are suspected of having participated in the rebellion one way or another. So in fact, the people who most win out from the rebellion are the very people that Prigozhin accuses of having botched the invasion and many others in fact accused of having botched the invasion because as we know the most kind of important characteristic in an authoritarian system and the most important characteristic for Putin is loyalty and those

who show loyalty remain at the top. You mentioned the elite earlier, and I've read conflicting takes on how Russian elites feel about Putin right now. There's some analysis that says they're shaken, and there's other takes that say they've really rallied behind him. And I wonder what you found in your reporting. I think what the mutiny showed, especially the response in the elite to the mutiny on the day it was happening, was that you just saw the way that the system is really not held up,

you know, it's not glued together by any like idea or strength of feeling or anything like that. Nobody really reacted that strongly in support of Putin. No one, you know, there was not some everyone kind of just hedged their bets, stayed silent, try to see what would happen. And that kind of is the mood as I see it continuing in the days since of, you know, quietly watching and waiting to see what will happen. There hasn't been a huge rallying around Putin that has been very obvious. We can see the Kremlin tread quite carefully in terms of who it is accusing. You know, it hasn't gone after people in a big way. We know about Sergei Sorovikin, the general, being interrogated,

but we don't know of, you know, a huge purge in the elite because if there was a purge, it would also bring risks and destabilizing risks and possibly create, you know, pockets of elites who might begin to kind of oppose in their own self-interest, feel the pressure against themselves and turn on the Kremlin. So the Kremlin's being careful that there isn't this massive purge that we're seeing. For the time being, I think it's a sort of watch and wait. And, you know, the system has inertia on its side and the system has, you know, the broad desire of the population to, you know, attain stability, to retain stability in the country and not see it descend into chaos.

I'm curious about how ordinary Russians feel about Putin right now. I know state-run polls, but also recent polling by the Levada Center, which is an independent pollster in Russia, Recent polling by the Levada Center, which is an independent pollster in Russia, they show the majority of people do still trust and support Putin as a leader. seeing has been very severely damaged. But the population doesn't want an uprising and the population doesn't want chaos. It wants stability. It wants a paycheck. It wants pensions on time. It wants, you know, benefits to get paid out and that kind of thing. And we are seeing that the one part of the system that is really stable is that element. You know, there are the payouts that are promised to soldiers. They do happen.

You know, pension rises, that kind of thing are happening all the time. And that is really what the majority of the population care about. In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization. Empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix. I've been talking about

money for 20 years. I've talked to millions of people and I have some startling numbers to share with you. Did you know that of the people I speak to, 50% of them do not know their own household income. That's not a typo. 50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. So I'm curious about Putin's support in the Russian military. So I heard on Monday Shoigu was praising the army's loyalty during the rebellion. But do we have a sense of how soldiers actually feel about Putin right now? Well, I think it's important to remember that no one joined Prokhorin in some big, in some, in this kind of en masse. They managed to take a lot of bases,

which is suspect. They claim to have taken a lot of every single military base en route. So it's a sort of the same inertia that we see everywhere in the system. And then we were talking about in that no one joined Prokofiev to march on Moscow. But at the same time, no one really seems to have stopped him with much enthusiasm either. So it's kind of this weird, you know, if you remember that video that Prokosian put out in the morning when he takes the Rostov military headquarters, which really is the headquarters for the entire operation of running the war in Ukraine, the invasion. He takes the headquarters with his soldiers and the deputy defense minister and another top general come down for a chat with him. And it's pretty chummy and you know they uh they joke around a little bit and when uh progozhin says something on the lines of you know we want shoigu and gurasimov we want the top generals one of the guys he's

chatting with one of the people from the army another top general says you can have him you know he's joking obviously but there is this uh i think attitude um i don't think there's a huge um there's huge loyalty among um soldiers to the military elite at the moment because it's evident to everybody after a year and a bit of war that um there is corruption that all of the things that progession was pointing to were effectively correct i mean he was talking kind of pretty truthfully about what was going on um the difference is that not everybody in the system wants to take a bet on, you know, rebellion and not everybody, you know, in fact, the majority of people want to preserve stability above all else. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. Inertia really, really seems to be the theme. And I've seen

some takes saying that it's kind of shocking that no one was rallying in the streets for Putin. But I think what you're saying really explains that. It's an empty system. You know, it's empty, really. It pays the bills. That's what it does. But, you know, do you really go out, you know, cheering for that myth? I don't know.

There is this hollowness, which means that no one will really kind of fight for it, but no one will really fight to bring it down either. Let's talk a bit about how this whole thing might impact the war. So up until now, the Wagner Group had been one of Russia's more effective fighting forces, and they've played this huge role in Russia's gains in the war over the past few months, most notably in Bakhmut. And now it seems like they're gone as a presence on the battlefield. So can Russia still win this war without them in the picture? So they were, you're right, they were a very important fighting force. They were pretty crucial.

And the only success Russia's had in the war since about, I think, April last year has come from Wagner, really. I mean, Russia seized large chunks of Ukraine and has managed to hold on to them, though, you know, we saw them lose quite a bit of territory in one counteroffensive and then another. And now they might be losing ground again. But the only push of the front line in Russia's kind of in Russia's favor, it came from this massive fighting force. The thing is, we just don't actually know what will happen with them. I think the Kremlin doesn't know yet.

I think there is still a conversation happening about what really happens with Wagner and its fighters. We know that tent camps are being built in Belarus because the deal was obviously that the Wagner force moves to Belarus and that was part of the negotiations and the peace deal effectively from the mutiny. And we've seen pictures yesterday, I think, from like a Wagner adjacent telegram channel showing literal tent camps, though completely empty for now, getting ready to welcome Wagner fighters. But will they actually go? Because if you call recruitment centers in Russia for Wagner, which we've done, they're still recruiting. And they say, wow, it's the same thing.

You just sign a contract with Wagner, you'll still be with us. So don't listen to the news, ignore that. So really, we actually just don't know where this group of men are going to go and what's going to happen to them we know that the russian defense ministry has offered those to incorporate those men into the regular armed forces so they've said you can come sign contracts with us and just receive now receive a paycheck from the army rather than from wagner or kind of a combination of wagner and the army as it was. And we don't know how many men will accept that or have accept that. We saw that on the day of the mutiny, Putin changed the law in order to allow convicts

to join the regular armed forces. Now, convicts make up a very big proportion of the Wagner fighting force, and they couldn't join the regular army before. Now they can. So maybe a large proportion will actually just go over to the army but that doesn't even if you know we're talking about the fate of 25,000 men even if the majority of them join the army will that make a huge difference the thing that Wagner had that gave it superiority on the compared to other um divisions and elements of the army um on the front line was that it had

an efficient command structure and was very brutal internally we've seen them kill their own deserters you know execute their own uh men for desertion uh it was a very brutal but at the same time as a result horribly cruelly efficient machine. And those kind of command structures don't exist in the Russian armed forces. So take that away. It's a huge dent. I've seen Zelensky making comments about how what happened is illustrative of Putin's weakness. And I'm just wondering, what kind of impact do you think this chaos or perceived instability inside Russia could have on support for Ukraine from the West? Because that's what he seems to be. He seems to be trying

to push that message right now. And he obviously has a goal in mind, right? In every way possible, instability inside Russia, of course, is good for Ukraine. These, you know, it's always good if your enemy is focused on itself and is fighting internally. That is inevitably a weakness. And so it is definitely a positive for Ukraine's counteroffensive and will have an effect on morale in the armed forces when your kind of most popular guy is now exiled to Belarus. You know, that does have an impact on Russian soldiers' morale as well. In terms of what it tells the West and how it, because I guess for Ukraine, the most important thing is to maintain the West's support, right?

It's to keep the weapons coming. It's to keep the money coming. If a counter offensive, if you have this huge successful counter offensive, then you will get obviously more sense among Western countries, more attention and more sense that this battle can be won. Now, we don't see a massive success at the moment of the counteroffensive it's inching along there are some successes on on ukraine's part but it's not a huge victory yet um and with that kind of absent what you have instead is ukraine can point to well look at the mess and chaos in russia you know we really have a fighting chance here keep supporting us keep paying attention

keep giving us weapons because um we are seizing know, we give us the chance to seize the moment when our enemy is kind of destabilized and chaotic internally. How much does Putin's political future depend on how this war goes? What's at stake for him here? They'll probably muddle through as they always muddle through. It's hard to say. There is an election coming up, but those are pretty meaningless by this point. Whether it will be a question whether Putin runs, I think it's hard to see him doing anything else. It's everything and nothing. I mean, the perception of Putin is changing.

It's changing sharply as a result of the rebellion. It's changing sharply as a result of the war effort. You know, and and the multiple, multiple string of sort of string of multiple failures on the front. It changes perceptions. Whether that will change facts on the ground is it's really hard to it's hard to know. Polina, thank you so much for putting all of this into context for us, all your insight. It was great to talk to you. Thanks for your interest and time. So before we go today, just a quick update. On Tuesday, Russia and Ukraine accused each other of plotting to carry out an attack on the Zaporizhia nuclear power station.

The station, Europe's largest nuclear plant, has been in Russia's control since the early days of the invasion in February of last year. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said explosive devices had been placed on the roof of some power units in a way that could make it look like they'd been attacked from the Ukrainian side. While Russia said Ukraine was planning to drop ammunition laced with nuclear waste onto the plant. There would obviously be huge consequences if there were to be real damage to the plant, and that's something we're going to be watching. That's all for today. I'm Tamara Kandaker. Thanks for listening to FrontBurner.