Experts: ‘Putin’s leadership and power has taken a big hit’

Russian leader left weakened after mutiny threat from Wagner Group, local analysts say

‘Lukashenko had to step in and save Russia . . . . That in and of itself says Putin has lost the control of his own regime’s security.’

KEVIN RYAN, fellow, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School

A short-lived coup attempt in Russia Friday into Saturday apparently ended with President Vladimir Putin remaining in power and a would-be armed mutiny losing steam in its march from Ukraine toward Moscow.

But while soldiers with the mercenary Wagner Group did not ignite a conflict to topple the longtime Russian dictator, the attempted rebellion has left Putin weakened and more vulnerable to future challenges to his authority, according to two local experts in international affairs.

“Putin’s leadership and power has taken a big hit,” said Kevin Ryan, a retired Army brigadier general who served as US defense attaché in Moscow and is a senior fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School.

“This episode reveals that Putin is just defending his regime not only against Ukraine, as he claims in the media, and the West and NATO,” Ryan said in a phone interview Saturday. “But he’s defending it against his own people.”

In what may have been the greatest direct challenge to Putin in his more than two decades in the Kremlin, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner mercenaries, threatened to enter Moscow with an armed force after he said the regular Russian military attacked a Wagner camp in Ukraine on Friday.

Prigozhin, who had been a close ally of Putin, and his private military unit entered Ukraine last year after the Russian military failed to quickly make progress in its invasion. But as fighting continued, Prigozhin grew increasingly critical of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and its military leadership, while avoiding any direct criticism of the Russian president.

After Friday’s attack, Prigozhin ordered Wagner mercenaries to seize key military facilities in southwestern Russia and threatened to enter Moscow.

But Prigozhin’s advance on Moscow abruptly reversed course Saturday, following an agreement brokered between Prigozhin and Aleksandr Lukashenko, the leader of Belarus. The deal reportedly calls for Prigozhin to go to Belarus, and the criminal case against him in Russia for organizing an armed insurrection would be dropped, according to details that emerged Saturday.

Putin jokes about Lukashenko as “little brother,” Ryan said, but the Belarus president was the one who apparently reached a deal with Prigozhin.

“His little brother, Lukashenko, had to step in and save Russia from a civil war, or at least from a very violent episode. That in and of itself says Putin has lost the control of his own regime’s security,” Ryan said.

Naunihal Singh, a professor of national security affairs at the US Naval War College in Rhode Island, said in an interview he wasn’t surprised to see Prigozhin back down.

“[Prigozhin’s] whole point was he wasn’t making a coup, he wasn’t going to try to take over in Moscow, he wasn’t going to try to overthrow Putin,” said Singh, who is the author of “Seizing Power: The Strategic Logic of Military Coups.”

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is deeply unpopular with Russian soldiers, who experience extreme abuse in the nation’s military. Many within its ranks may have agreed with criticisms of how the war has been conducted, according to Singh, who said he was speaking as an individual and not representing the war college.

US government officials said in May that at least 100,000 Russian fighters had been killed or wounded in just the previous five months. Many of the Russians who are fighting are conscripts, officials have said.

While Prigozhin didn’t force the nation’s military and security forces to pick sides, he may have opened a Pandora’s box that could encourage other forces in Russia to openly oppose Putin, Singh said.

“He’s also created doubt in people’s minds about what might happen, and everyone now is afraid about the possibility of civil war,” Singh said.

But, in separate interviews Saturday, Ryan and Singh cautioned that it remained uncertain what Putin’s next move might be. He might try to further stamp down on the liberties of everyday Russians in an attempt to appear strong; he might quietly change the leadership of the Russian military, which has been blamed for failures in Ukraine.

Both cautioned that a civil war within Russia could be disastrous. The country still has a large military, and its stockpile of nuclear weapons could be threatened should its security apparatus fail.

Putin himself faces opposition from democratic activists who want him out of office, and, on the right, nationalists who have supported Putin believe he hasn’t done enough to fight the war in Ukraine, Ryan said.

“The outcome of it isn’t necessarily a better Russia for American or Western interests,” Ryan said. “It could be a Russia that’s worse and more antagonistic.”

Singh said it’s unclear how Putin could step aside as Russia’s leader. He wouldn’t likely accept the humiliation of exile, but he couldn’t be sure he’d be safe if he remained.

“Putin has thrown so many people out of windows, that he probably can’t afford to step down,” he said.

The Russian president has been willing to take risks where many other leaders have not, according to Singh, who said his biggest fear is that Putin would turn to nuclear weapons.

“I don’t want to see Putin decide that he needs to get out of the war tomorrow, and the best way to do this is to drop nukes on Kiev,” Singh said. “That would be terrifying.”