interview
Putin’s reaction to the uprising under Wagner boss Prigozhin shows that he is quite willing to make compromises, says Russia expert Sarah Pagung. But Putin’s backing is still strong among the elites.
tagesschau24: Why did the head of the Wagner mercenary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, break off the march on Moscow again?
Sarah Pagung: We have to guess. In my view, there are two plausible theories. Firstly, that Prigozhin has no support from the other Russian elites and has now realized that this march on Moscow will lead to nothing. And then accepted these security guarantees. The other thing might be that he got what he really wanted. And that may be a change in the Russian command structure.
To person
Sarah Pagung is Program Director for International Affairs at the Körber Foundation. Previously, she was an Associate Fellow at the German Society for Foreign Relations. She mainly deals with Russian foreign, security and information policy.
Change to leadership in Department of Defense?
tagesschau24: What do you mean by the change in the Russian command structure?
paging: This putsch or this uprising, however you want to define it, was triggered by the hostility between Prigozhin and the Russian Ministry of Defense. Prigozhin has repeatedly demanded that there be changes there and repeatedly attacked the leadership of the Defense Ministry.
But there is also the question of whether that will really happen now and whether that is a concession that Putin can make. Because that would be a clear defeat for him, basically a successful blackmail.
“Sign of Weakness”
tagesschau24: In his television speech, Putin very publicly threatened severe punishment for Prigozhin and his supporters, and then within a few hours he rebelled and said that there would be no punishment. To what extent has Putin lost face as a result?
paging: I think it’s a very clear sign of weakness not only from himself but also from this system. We saw an uprising on Saturday that was very visible – also for the entire Russian population. It was on TV, everyone was talking about it. Even today, the news sites are still full of it.
Putin very clearly attacked Prigozhin, without naming him, called him a traitor — and in the end didn’t comply with exactly that: the severe penalties he had threatened.
From my point of view, this shows once again that this omnipotence, which is primarily attributed to Putin here in Europe, does not exist at all. And that it may not be true that Putin finds it impossible to compromise or back down. That if his power is threatened, he might actually be willing to do it.
Putin was ‘in a dilemma’
tagesschau24: But was it clever of Putin to go directly to television with it? Because that’s how all Russians noticed what happened.
paging: I think he was in a dilemma when he gave that speech on Saturday morning. On the one hand, Prigozhin has direct access to the Russian population, to the Russian public, via Telegram and other social media. That means the story was out in the world anyway.
It was perfectly clear that the Russian state was no longer able to control or downplay it. That is, Putin had to react. But at the same time, with this very clear reaction, he gave further meaning to the uprising. There probably wasn’t a really good solution for him at that moment.
“Clear problems for the regime”
tagesschau24: Will doubts about Putin grow among the Russian population now?
paging: I believe that in the medium to long term it is precisely this nimbus of Putin as omnipotent, as controlling in Russia, that if not broken, then at least clearly tarnished. And that this will be something that will cause significant problems for the regime in the medium and long term.
To what extent this will now also be visible in the short term, to what extent we will see stronger elite competition, an elite struggle or the formation of a counter-elite – to be honest, that is still completely open to me, also because these events came at such short notice and came as a surprise to everyone.
“Backing is still big”
tagesschau24: How big is Putin’s backing in the Kremlin?
paging: So far we assume that the backing is still strong. That was definitely the case up to the weekend, and I believe it is still the case. Otherwise there might have been further support for this uprising.
But how solid it really is, the question marks have grown significantly after this weekend. This is also still relatively open, because we will have to look in the coming days: How do individual parts of the elite express themselves, how do individual elites behave? How does state power relate to certain elites – will we perhaps see more people coming to court now or disappearing in some form? These could all be indications of how the inner-elitist power struggles might be going at the moment.
Unclear how Wagner troops will behave
tagesschau24: The Wagner mercenaries are at least calmed down for now. What does this mean for the Russian army? It was definitely dependent on the Wagner group.
paging: The Wagner group has taken on essential tasks in the Russian war against the Ukraine. Not only in hotly contested areas of the front, such as Bachmut, but partly also in the rear, because at least some of them are very well trained, have a lot of experience and are equipped for such tasks.
If Wagner should really no longer take part in the war on a larger scale, that would certainly be a problem for the Russian side. But here, too, we have to be careful at this point in time and see: What is the Wagner group doing, what are the troops doing now? Where do they go, how do they behave? And what impact will the events of the weekend have on the rest of the Russian army, for example on their morale and their combat readiness?
“A little more morality”
tagesschau24: What do the weekend’s developments mean for Ukraine’s chances in the war? Or could it happen the other way round, with Putin saying: Now I’m going to show the world what I’m up to?
paging: I think, despite this inner-elitist struggle that we have now seen in Russia, opinions on the Russian war against Ukraine are divided. Prigozhin made that clear again and again. It’s not as if Prigozhin was in any way opposed to the war.
He might just have been on a slightly different form of warfare or strategy. I don’t think that the Russian side will let up. What that might bring now is a bit more morale and hope on the Ukrainian side or on the western side, because these cracks, this weakness are now showing up in the Russian system. It remains to be seen what effect this will have on Russian combat capability at the front.
Of course, there is always a risk that Russia will escalate further, possibly nuclear. However, I doubt that these events have now increased the risk again, because it is about an inner-Russian struggle and an inner-Russian conflict about how this war is to be waged.
The interview was conducted by André Schünke, tagesschau24. The interview was slightly adapted for the written version.