Yesterday’s rhetorical attack by Yevgeny Prigozhin on Russian President Vladimir Putin was only the apex of what had been going on for months. It was the culmination of a series of escalating charges hurled by Prigozhin not only at Russia’s government but at Russia’s military. No great surprise then that one day later Prigozhin’s assault went from the merely verbal to the full-on physical.
Prigozhin has status and by now a reputation that precedes him. As head of a hardened group of mercenaries, or private military company called the Wagner Group, he is known as a hell of a tough guy, far tougher even than Putin. While Putin’s War, Russia’s attack on Ukraine in February 2022, has famously gone badly, or at least was far from the cakewalk originally anticipated, the Wagner Group has chalked up battlefield victories while Prigozhin increasingly took on the Russian establishment.
Now he has mounted a direct charge against the man who used to be his champion and is now his arch enemy – Putin. The Wagner Group has taken over one of Russia’s major cities, Rostov-on-the-Don, and threatened to go further. Putin meanwhle called what happened an act of “betrayal” and promised to inflict on everyone involved “inevitable punishment.”
It’s tempting for leaders in the West, including Ukraine’s President Volodymir Zelensky, to take some pleasure in the chaos that now engulfs Russia’s president. But we’d better be careful what we wish for. Prigozhin is at best unpredictable and at worst worse – more malevolent, more aggressive, more dangerous than his putative superior, Putin. Moreover, if Putin prevails in this stand-off he will not let up. In fact, he will double down on his enemies, real and perceived.
What, then, is the best the West can hope for? That Prigozhin’s rebellion will lead to a period of instability that eventually will result in a Russia less malevolent and belligerent, and more amenable to a peaceable Europe.