The hot dog vendor and the spy from Saint Petersburg

 “Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.” 

Henry IV, Part 2

It is never easy at the top. Someone, somewhere, is always after you. They will eventually get you, unless you strike first and without mercy. Each time you feel threatened you must preempt your enemies. Pit potential traitors against each other with some divide et impera; foster divisions amongst your subjects to forestall alliances that could challenge your sovereign power; promote those who display tenacity and obeisance (but keep an eye on them). Make an example of those who even think to challenge your authority: send them to the Gulag; poison them; dump their carcasses on the frozen banks of the river, or; send them to the penitentiary and throw away the key. Even then, there is no guarantee of infallibility. The adroit leader knows that, and that knowledge can trigger the chills of paranoia. As the corpses pile up through the years and decades, you can’t help but look over your shoulder. The lonely autarch asks, “Who else may come after me?” That may necessitate more terrorisation, and even greater consolidation of power. But, even then the question that really keeps the ruler up at night is this: “Which one of my subordinates has been around me long enough to believe that they can do what I do, better than me?” That’s the hardest question of all for those lusting for everlasting power. You can’t kill everyone; you need some people on your side doing your bidding. 

One man who has followed this script is Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin. In over two decades of power, he has killed off a fragile and nascent Russian democracy, vanquished his enemies and tightened the vise on the lives of the Russian people. Concurrently, Mr Putin has allowed key allies to become obscenely wealthy just as long as they followed one cardinal rule: stay out of his way. Anyone who has even dared to challenge him through seemingly legitimate political channels has paid a steep price (eg Mikhail Khodorkovsky; Alexei Navalny). In over twenty-three years of progressively solidified power, Putin’s grip has felt invincible. That infallibility dissolved before the eyes of the Russian people – and the world – on Friday, June 23rd. It was an “Et tu, Brute?” moment for the Russian President – a visceral stab in the back, by a man ironically nicknamed “Putin’s butcher.” 

Yevgeny Prigozhin, a ruthless thug who became rich and powerful through his ties with Putin, effectively telegraphed to the entire world that he could do Mr Putin’s job better than him. He climbed the ladder far enough, he had different ideas and – this is the critical point – he commanded a private army of at least 50,000 Russian men. Prigozhin, the head of the brutal Wagner Mercenary Group, has been the preeminent beneficiary of Putin’s military misadventures in the last decade. Wagner, which has always had direct links with the Kremlin, and has operated at the behest of Mr Putin, has acted as a convenient shadow organisation for the political goals of the President, executing his dirty deeds in Syria, Sudan, Mali and other unstable but geopolitically advantageous nations. It was not until last year that Prigozhin acknowledged the mere existence of Wagner and the fact that he was its commander. His importance grew exponentially ever since Putin has called on Wagner to assist in the flailing “special military operation” in Ukraine. Putin needed Prigozhin, and the latter knew it. 

In recent months he became very vocal, castigating the military and its top brass for being ineffectual and failing to properly arm his men. That kind of talk has sent countless people behind bars, but Prigozhin seemed to be ranting with impunity. Putin did not directly reprimand him. It has been clear for some time that the catastrophic failures in Ukraine have wounded Putin and have strengthened Prigozhin. He grew louder and angrier until he directly threatened the Russian State, and accused the leadership – therefore explicitly impugning Putin’s character for the first time – of misleading the citizenry with an unnecessary war in Ukraine. On Saturday, 24th June, an armed rebellion was underway. Prigozhin directed his mutineering fighters to march to Moscow, after occupying key government buildings in the city of Rostov-on-Don. All the more remarkable, considering Rostov-on-Don is a major military centre, and a key command base for the war in Ukraine – Prigozhin was in the lion’s den and faced little (if any) resistance from the State apparatus. 

Putin, in a televised address to the nation, accused Prigozhin of “treason” and promised swift and unforgiving retribution on him and his mercenaries. The prospect of a bloody conflagration on the streets of Moscow seemed likely. By the evening, Wagner forces were only within 124 miles from the gates of Moscow. A few hours later – in a strange and unexpected twist – the leader of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, brokered an agreement: Prigozhin will go to Belarus and his Wagner mercenaries will avoid criminal charges. Prigozhin called off the armed incursion into Moscow. There is no word of where Prigozhin is now – he was last seen leaving Roston-on-Don, amidst a rockstar exit from the cheering public. Vladimir Putin has not been seen or heard since his televised address on Saturday. 

These dramatic and historic events amount to an abject humiliation for Mr Putin. For the first time ever, there are serious chinks in the President’s armour. The man who directly challenged his authority – and his life – has been absolved of criminal responsibility. The fact that Mr Prigozhin is still breathing, over forty-eight hours after instigating an insurrection, is remarkably telling in itself. 

Russia, a colossal landmass whose borders stretch from Finland to North Korea, has never been an easy Empire to rule. Men of vastly different temperaments have learned this lesson. Perhaps the events unfolding before our eyes echo the Russian Revolution of 1905 for Mr Putin – he may have to make painful concessions to his plenary power, just as Nicholas Romanov II reluctantly did in the face of unignorable resistance. Potentially, this could be more like the October Revolution of 1917 for the President, or the August coup of 1990; if so, the era of Putin is slipping away like quicksand. It is too early to tell. Much still depends on the potential confluence of a number of forces, the critical one being the level of support that Putin still commands amongst high-ranking officials and through the military ranks. 

The fate of Mr Prigozhin is also of paramount importance to constructing the full picture – I am unsure whether Putin’s intrinsic ruthlessness will permit him to resist extinguishing the former hot dog vendor from his hometown. The President may be about to take a leaf out of the most brutal and unforgiving of his predecessors, the moustachioed “man of steel”. Should that transpire, Prigozhin’s fate may quickly mirror that of Leon Trotsky. While no rational person would weep at the potential political demise of Vladimir Putin, the prospect of a nuclear power collapsing into a civil war with no end in sight would be an occasion for existential disquiet for the world.