It was just over a month ago that the Wagner Group, led by Yevgeny Prigozhin, mounted an attack, or attempted a coup, or maybe a mutiny, against Russian President Vladimir Putin. While the rebellion was short lived, virtually every Western expert agrees that it was, and remains a threat to Putin’s authority.
I wrote at the time that Putin had good reason to fear Prigozhin – see links to two earlier, related, posts below. But I did not imagine that so soon after the rebellion I would see on the front page of the Financial Times what I saw on the front page of today’s Financial Times.
It was a photograph of Prigozhin – looking very well, thank you – taken this week in St. Petersburg. The picture – which has been proven to be authentic – was occasioned by the Russia Africa summit. Prigozhin is seen shaking hands gregariously and, apparently, relaxedly, with Freddy Mapouka, a delegate from the Central African Republic.
It is an astonishing photo because 1) It reveals how radically Putin has differed from what previous Russian/Soviet tyrants would have done with anyone who did what Prigozhin did. They would have locked up or worse anyone who threatened their power. 2) It departs radically from what Putin himself has done with other prominent Russian activists and oppositionists. Which is to say that especially in recent years he has imprisoned them, or poisoned them, or murdered them. 3) It departs radically from past patterns because Putin has allowed or been obliged to allow his leniency with Prigozhin to be so publicly apparent.
No one knows if Prigozhin will indefinitely be granted what seems to be his freedom. Moreover, the whole episode remains – as Winston Churchill famously said about Russia – a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma. Still, the photograph says a lot… even if we cannot yet divine exactly what.