Four days after Vladimir Putin faced the most serious challenge to his 23-year leadership, the Russian president called in the country’s top media figures for a briefing in the Kremlin.
The panic of last weekend, as the troops of renegade warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin seemed set to march into Moscow, was still fresh in people’s minds. Putin, who had disappeared from public view for nearly two days as the crisis came to a head, was now holding meetings with various key players, including the editors of loyal media outlets, to project an image of calm control.
“The main message was that he is dealing with the situation,” said Konstantin Remchukov, editor-in-chief of Nezavisimaya Gazeta, a newspaper with Kremlin connections, who was present at the meeting. “He is starting to investigate and will ask every question, find everything out, and draw the necessary conclusions.”
Nonetheless, as the shock of last weekend’s drama starts to wear off and those in the political elite begin to digest the import of events, which Putin himself claimed almost spilled into “civil war”, there are many questions hanging in the air.
Why did Putin allow Prigozhin, whose outspoken, foul-mouthed tirades hardly made him an under-the-radar threat, to grow powerful enough to launch such a serious mutiny? Why was Putin so absent and distant during the critical moments of the unrest? And if it is apparently so easy to launch an armed attack on the centre of power, what is to stop others from doing so in future?
A senior western diplomat in Moscow said: “The atmosphere is even more surreal than usual. On the one hand, life goes on and everyone pretends nothing is wrong; on the other, everyone realises that something may have broken permanently.”
The Kremlin line, transmitted by state television channels and emphasised by Putin in several public appearances, is that society at large came together to ensure the mutiny was defeated.
“The message now is that even a weak Putin is better than civil war,” said Alexandra Prokopenko, a former adviser to the Russian central bank who is now a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center.
Remchukov said he had spoken to dozens of leading political and business figures in recent days and believed that the elites had indeed consolidated around Putin.
“These people have had a serious scare,” he said. “They saw Prigozhin’s angry eyes, heard how he swears, the rough language he uses. People who may have had political grievances, were angry about the economy, it’s like they all hit the delete key, and from all the people I have seen this week, they’re saying one thing: ‘We’re together, we’re moving forward.’”
While it is true that almost nobody in the elite would have welcomed a Prigozhin takeover, not everyone agreed with Remchukov’s positive spin on the fallout.
Many were alarmed that Putin had allowed the situation to reach such a point, and confused by his disappearance from view as events unfolded. The crisis served as something of an “emperor’s new clothes” moment for members of the elite, with the system revealed to be much more fragile than people believed.
“Many people close to the Kremlin and in the Kremlin were sure that Prigozhin was under control and that there were people who manage him,” said Tatiana Stanovaya, founder of the R.Politik political analysis firm. “Now, you discover it was all a total mess. It means that you start asking some questions yourself, about what is under control in this country and what isn’t,” she added.
Popular memes made unfavourable comparisons between Putin and the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who remained in Kyiv and made powerful video address when under attack from the Russian army last February. Putin appeared to be aloof during the crisis, with rumours he had fled to St Petersburg after making an initial address.
“For nearly two whole days he’s silent, then he comes out and talks a load of nonsense and platitudes. I had dozens of people calling me asking ‘What the hell was that?’ People are disappointed, maybe even traumatised,” said one well-connected political insider in Moscow.
“For now, I think the crisis has been averted … but of course, Putin’s reputation is damaged, there can be no question of that. Now they have gone into full damage control mode,” said one serving senior official.
At another meeting Putin held on Tuesday, this time with top security officials including the maligned defence minister Sergei Shoigu, the main target of Prigozhin’s ire, televised footage of the opening discussion did not do much to dispel the feeling of gloom.
“Look at the expressions on people’s faces: they are sitting there looking like all their close relatives have just died at the same time,” said the political insider. However, the source does not expect the Prigozhin mutiny to prompt others in Putin’s inner circle to have similar thoughts.
One of the biggest mysteries of the past week is how Prigozhin is still alive. The Russian president has frequently made harsh statements about the grisly ends those he considers to be traitors should face. However, Prigozhin has apparently been allowed to move, together with some of his Wagner fighters, to Belarus, while the FSB has dropped its case against him.
One theory doing the rounds inside the defence ministry is that Prigozhin, who spent years servicing the very top of the Russian elite, has amassed enough damaging material to use as an insurance policy.
“Many in the ministry believe Prigozhin has kompromat on everyone,” said a former senior defence ministry official. “This would make it unlikely that he would be liquidated, since the kompromat staying secret would be tied to him remaining alive. Otherwise, I don’t know how he would still be alive. It doesn’t make much sense.”
Others see Putin agreeing to let Prigozhin leave for Belarus as a sign of temporary weakness on the part of the Russian president but expect him to act later.
“I assume that in half a year or a year, novichok will catch up with Prigozhin,” said the source in the political elite. “I don’t think he will be easily forgiven, maybe not immediately but in some time, in the best traditions, novichok will come to visit him. He should probably watch out for his underpants,” the source added, referencing the 2020 poisoning of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, in which an FSB hit squad apparently smeared the nerve agent on the inside of his underwear.
Another question is what will happen to those deemed to have supported Prigozhin, or who tried to remain neutral and quiet as events unfolded. Rumours have swirled about the whereabouts of Sergei Surovikin, a key army general who was Prigozhin’s main ally in the ministry of defence. The New York Times cited US intelligence reports suggesting Surovikin had been detained. It may merely be routine questioning rather than an arrest, but there is a sense that purges could be on the way.
“We believe the president will look to punish those he sees as not loyal enough. We expect purges. It might not come immediately, but it will come,” said the western diplomat.
Remchukov said it was clear from the meeting with editors that Putin’s priority now is trying to find out who else may have backed Prigozhin, either openly or tacitly: “I understood that he’s seriously involved in the attempt to find out what happened, how, whether Prigozhin was acting alone, whose money was involved and so on.”
How Putin will act when he receives this information is harder to predict. Those in the Moscow elite paint a picture of a leader who is increasingly isolated and erratic.
“To understand what comes next you should probably ask psychologists, not political scientists,” said the Moscow insider. “It’s clear that we are dealing with someone who is not making rational decisions at the moment.”
