Episode Notes:

This weekend, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the Russian mercenary Wagner group, led an attempted mutiny against the Russian military. From Friday night into Saturday, Wagner forces managed to capture the city of Rostov and marched towards Moscow until, on Friday night, they agreed to stand down after striking a deal with the Russian government. Rob Lee, a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, joined the WarCast to tell us more about what happened and what this will mean for both Russia and Ukraine.

[:18] Intro

[:50] What’s the current state of the mutiny?

[3:46] How could the split affect role of Russia in the world?

[6:38] How could this affect Ukraine?

[13:59] Will this continue?

Episode Transcript

Erin O’Brien: My name is Erin O'Brien and I'm the membership editor at War on the Rocks. You are listening to the Warcast, the members only podcast for what you need to know now. This weekend, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the Russian mercenary Wagner group, led an attempted mutiny against the Russian military. From Friday night into Saturday, Wagner forces managed to capture the city of Rostov and marched towards Moscow until, on Friday night, they agreed to stand down after striking a deal with the Russian government. Here to tell us more about what happened and what this will mean for both Russia and Ukraine, is Rob Lee, a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. Welcome to the Warcast, Rob.

Rob Lee: Thanks for having me on.

Erin O’Brien: So as of right now, where do things stand with the attempted mutiny?

Rob Lee: So it's a good question and it's not fully clear. So obviously, Yevgeny Prigozhin, he released a statement about an hour or so ago. It appears he came to some kind of agreement with the Russian government and Wagner forces retreated from Russia and went back into Ukraine. The terms of that agreement, Dmitry Peskov, the Russian spokesman, said, it's not clear if those are the actual terms. And part of him said that Prigozhin might move to Belarus and that some of Wagner might have to sign contracts to the MOD and that some others though ... It's not fully clear. And so basically right now the immunity itself doesn't appear it's ongoing, but it doesn't appear as though the issues that started had necessarily been resolved.

And there are a lot of really key questions about, there may have been some short-term compromise. It's not clear there's a long-term solution and it seems though the current situation is not necessarily sustainable as it is. It seems there's still some outstanding questions here. And one thing that Peskov's terms didn't mention is it didn't mention how will Wagner operate in Africa and elsewhere? Wagner, it's not really a private company, right? It operates at the behest of the Russian government and it requires support from the Russian government. As the way it's operated thus far, it relies on the Russian [inaudible 00:02:14] defense for getting flown to countries, for equipment, for ammunition, for other kinds of support. So it can't necessarily operate independently, at least not what it was before.

So significant questions there, right? Even if Prigozhin moves to Belarus, would the Kremlin still be happy with Wagner continuing to operate in Africa? Wagner in Africa, yes, they pursue their own contracts, but they also work at the behest of the Russian government. If they [inaudible 00:02:37] Russian foreign policy, would the Kremlin allow that kind of key component Russian foreign policy to be outsourced, someone that's not subordinate to the Kremlin? Right? All these are big questions.

And again, of course there's war in Ukraine going, there's a significant Ukraine counter offensive going on right now. The Russian military is not in a position to do much other than defend. Right now, the Russian security services are very busy and so I think this is really a short term compromise or bandaid. And at a long term, I don't think this is a sustainable solution after this counteroffensive, right? We might see changes when the war is over. Whenever that happens we might see the changes, but my view is that the previous Kremlin relationship with the Wagner group is not going to ... I think that's over and I think something new will happen, right? Whether or not that means the Wagner group, its power becomes reduced or if the Russian government will try and push Prigozhin out and put someone else in charge. I don't know, it's too soon to say. But I think that relationship has forever changed and I think we're still in the phase where Kremlin is figuring out what to do and how to proceed with this.

Erin O’Brien: As you mentioned, Wagner has long functioned as an unofficial arm of the Russian government and gave them plausible deniability over their extensive involvement in many, many countries around the world, in human rights violations, in war crimes. So how could this split between Wagner and the Russian government or this change in the layout affect Russian foreign policy and affect the way that Russia approaches its relationships with other states?

Rob Lee: It's not clear. So obviously the kind of birth of these PMCs is that part of it was to have some kind of plausible deniability, but part of it was they operated in a different set of rules. They can do things that the Russian government, military couldn't do. That's particularly true in [inaudible 00:04:28] where Wagner was using very Draconian measures, including executions, that the Russian military cannot do the same thing. So it's not clear, but a lot of the experience with Wagner and other PMCs the last seven, eight years has been very much improvisational and experimental. Right? It wasn't clear what the exact system would be going forward. And of course Prigozhin is someone who Putin knew, he's a closed associate. And so that made it somewhat a unique thing as well, right? And so it's not fully clear.

It's not clear how this will pan out. The priority right now is the war in Ukraine, that is the Russian government priority. And so they may subordinate some of these longer term questions in order to prevent a greater catastrophe from occurring. My view is that the long term effects of this mutiny that happened on the weekend, a lot of it will depend on potentially how this Ukrainian counteroffensive goes. If Ukrainian has a lot of success, breaks through Russian lines, forces the Russian lines to collapse, that will exacerbate even more these tensions in Russia, right, after this mutiny that already came up over this weekend. That could really create some significant issues domestically. I'm not saying necessarily Putin would lose power, but it could exacerbate issues and potentially lead ... there's maybe a greater chance of some extraordinary event happening in Russia that could potentially end the war.

But on the other hands, if the Russian military is able to defend someone effectively and prevent Ukraine from having significant success in this counteroffensive, then it might undermine Prigozhin's move, right? Because he was insulting Russian ministry defense, saying they're lying about things, that they're collapsing in [inaudible 00:06:11] And ironically the Russian military is actually performing somewhat competently in this operation of the South right now compared to the performance elsewhere at other times of war.

So if the Russian military can basically successfully defend and hold back this really important counterfeit from Ukraine that could change position, that could bolster [inaudible 00:06:31] opposition, it could bolster Putin's position in other things like that. So a lot of outstanding questions here and not fully clear what the long term implications are.

Erin O’Brien: All right, and I want to dig in a little bit on that, which is how could the loss of this alliance with Wagner or the loss of this alliance with Prigozhin, could it affect Russia's performance on the battlefield in Ukraine? How do you think this mutiny is going to affect the war there?

Rob Lee: The first part, probably not much of a direct immediate effect, right? Because Wagner, after Bakhmut, they were replaced by the Russian Ministry of Defense. They were not playing a key role in the war at this time, right? And it was never clear after Bakhmut what Wagner's role would be the rest of the war because its role has changed and has adapted and there was never a set role. So basically, if we go back, Wagner basically ... their role started in this war at the end of March. Allegedly, they didn't really play a role in the beginning. At that point the Russian military had a lot of early losses, some manpower issues, and Wagner was a more experienced formation for doing assaults. So Wagner got involved the end of March, they played a role in the Battle of Donbas, allegedly played a key role in the Battle of Poznan.

But since the summer it's been Bakhmut. That is basically all Wagner's been doing is the battle of Bakhmut and the flanks of Bakhmut. They haven't really played a role in other parts upfront to any kind of significant extent. And so last summer as well, initially when they got involved, Wagner's not a huge organization before the war, maybe a few thousand people, experienced people but still small. Prigozhin decided to start recruiting convicts over last summer. That became a very effective tool and a very effective manpower pool for modern to use, which became quite important over the winter.

But in January when Gerasimov took over command of the war, replacing Surovikin, one of the things that ... my view of the time was basically this is an attempt by the Russian [inaudible 00:08:23] to reassert itself in the war and push back on Prigozhin's moves to make himself the face of the war and maybe take more responsibility than they wanted to see. So I think that was one of the main moves, and it wasn't just Gerasimov. He brought a bunch of deputies who are people based in Moscow, generals there who didn't have recent combat experience, were not the right people to lead the war, but they were probably more reliable and loyal figures to him. And so there wouldn't be a question of would they be more loyal to Wagner or anything along those lines.

So at the same time around January we started hearing that Wagner's ability to recruit prisoners was being hindered, right? And it's not clear if it was completely cut off, but the MOD started recruiting prisoners themselves and it limited Wagner's options. And by doing that, not only did it strengthen the MOD, but it reduced Wagner's role and Wagner couldn't keep recruiting prisoners. It was a question of, okay, well, how significant will be going forward? Because it makes him a much smaller organization.

So all these things were playing out and while Bakhmut was happening right over the winter when Russia did its winter offensive, Russia had essentially very little success anywhere. Right? Bakhmut was the one place where they made some gains, right? I think it's could have been overstated, it was more of a symbolic victory. But that was the one place where they could say, okay, we achieved something, and the Russian government could say that. And so while that was going on, even though Prigozhin was getting into these increasingly volatile arguments and public criticisms of [inaudible 00:09:55] of all the figures, because Wagner was playing that role in Bakhmut and because both the MOD I think and the Kremlin needed some kind of win, I think the MOD had to grin and bear it basically. They had to continue supporting them.

But I think during that time the view is always, once Bakhmut is over, we're never going to put Wagner in a position where they can dictate terms to us, and that was what was happening over the spring and late winter. And so once the battle of Bakhmut, at least the Russian phase of it can ended in mid-May, Wagner within two weeks or so was replaced by Russian ministry defense units. I think both sides were happy to see that situation happen. Before that there had been some significant tensions and coordination problems between Wagner and the Russian ministry defense units.

Once Wagner left, at that point it was no longer clear what role Wagner would have in the rest of the war. They're designed for assaults. Wagner is a relatively small organization, assault attachments are 350 size units. With prisoners, they become 1,000 man units, but basically they're small. And of course for Prigozhin, Ukraine is not a place that's profitable for him. It was important because Wagner had played a role and it was important for its means of gaining political clout counterposition. But Wagner makes money in Africa, it makes money in these other countries and a lot of these guys who were sent to the fight in Ukraine, there was a trade-off here. Does Prigozhin want to lose some of these really key experienced members in Ukraine who can't then go back to Africa and make money for them? There’s always a big trade off there.

I think actually Prigozhin probably cared more about casualties among Wagner professionals than the Russian military did of its own soldiers. And so after Bakhmut, right, the Russia's prospects aren't great. It's not clear that Russia will be able to take any significant more territory. It's not clearly going to be able to take another town or city. And so for Wagner's purposes they could say, okay, we took Bakhmut. They can take credit for that if there isn't an opportunity to take credit for anything else significant. It's not clear what role Prigozhin wanted to play in Ukraine going forward. Right?

He may have been happy with a situation where Wagner went back to Africa and said, okay, this is on the administrative defense for the rest of the war in Ukraine, we're not going to be here. But ultimately after the battle of Bakhmut, [inaudible 00:12:11] and the MOD wanted to push back for months, they couldn't. And then what we saw after Wagner forces replaced ... I think by June 5th was the last day they said they were still in. Bakhmut. And then a week later we see this order from the Russian administrative defense saying, all private military companies, all volunteering units have to sign a contract with the MOD, subordinate themselves to the MOD, the money will come from us. And that was a way of most likely undermining Wagner's autonomy.

And my view is that basically this entire mutiny, and I think it was a mutiny because I don't think the purpose was to remove Putin, I think it was a response to that order that would've undermined or ended Wagner's semi independence and it would've undermined Prigozhin's role because instead of being at the same level of [inaudible 00:13:00] or someone else, he would be subordinate to them. I think basically what we found out was the reason Prigozhin did this massive step is that he found that Putin was supporting this move by the MOD, right? So the MOD announced something, Prigozhin says no, then it doesn't matter because they're both power factions. It only matters when Putin comes down and sides this one side, and I think it's pretty clear he sided with the MOD here.

And so we talk about what is the effect on the war, it was never clear after Bakhmut what role Wagner would play, how significant it would play. The MOD may have tried to cut into more of the convict pipeline or other recruiting pipeline, make it more difficult for them to muscle them out from the war even more. So I think it's not what role this mutiny plays because the announcement from the Russian MOD a couple weeks ago was actually potentially the role moment that said, okay, it's not clear Wagner's going to play a key role in the rest of this war because it might just be subsumed by the MOD or basically be focused before just out of the war itself.

Erin O’Brien: And last quick question before we end the Warcast, do you think this drama is over or do you think this is just the beginning?

Rob Lee: It's not over. So the terms that Dmitry Peskov mentioned don't answer a lot of questions and they probably aren't that sustainable. Right? And so as I said before, Wagner is not a private company. It works at the behest of the Russian government. It receives a significant support from the Russian military. It gets directions from Russian officials. The Russian [inaudible 00:14:25] has provided direction and contracts and all of that. Wagner can't operate without the MOD, at least not the way it has been, right. In Africa and other places, it has to have that MOD support because Wagner doesn't have transport, aircraft, he doesn't have all these other kind things.

So the terms that Peskov mentions didn't mention anything in Africa. It didn't mention anything about further MOD Wagner cooperation, because Wagner operates at the behest of Russian government and furthers Russian foreign policy. Would the Kremlin be willing for Prigozhin to be this person who's not subordinate to their interests, who now lives in Belarus but still operates there with Russian government support? Probably not, but that probably is an workable solution. So I think this was a short term compromise.

I think that Prigozhin ... this whole event, it became a challenge of Putin. I don't think that it can be a sustainable thing. Right? I don't think that can be allowed to persist long term while all the war's going on, while its counter offensive is going on, the Russian ministry defense, the Russian [inaudible 00:15:24] may not be able to respond to it effectively. Maybe that's why we saw a compromise. Long term, I think there will be either a move to remove Prigozhin from Wagner, to change what Wagner is, to set up some other PMC with a more loyal figure in charge to take over Wagner's role elsewhere. But look, we could see more fighting, we could see more conflict going forward whenever that occurs.

So my view is it's certainly not over yet. First of all, we don't know the real terms of the agreement. We don't know what Prigozhin agreed to, what Putin agreed to. And I think it's, again, more questions than answers to this point, but I think it is not the last time we've heard of this event. And as I said before, I think a lot about the implications of what does this mean, the Ukrainian counteroffensive will be a really significant factor. Right? If Ukraine has massive success, this makes everything worse. Maybe Prigozhin is strengthened, maybe he isn't. If Ukraine fails and Russia and military performs successfully, I think this undercuts a lot of what Prigozhin just did. So I think that that's something we have to wait for as well. And to be honest, as long as the counter offense is going on, I think the Russian government's going to be really focused on that instead of anything else. And then the violent situation might be something they have to deal with later on.

Erin O’Brien: All right, well, thank you so much for joining us on the Warcast.

Rob Lee: All right, thanks for having me.