The Complex Implications of Prigozhin’s Assassination

Putin is stronger in the short term, but maybe not in the long-term

Breaking news compels analysts like me to oversimplify, cast events in black and white terms, and avoid saying on television or radio, “I don’t know.”  As the news of Evgeny Prigozhin’s “alleged” (we will probably always have to keep adding that adverb as we are unlikely to ever know all the facts) assassination broke yesterday, I jumped on MSNBC for a good chunk of the day as I work for NBC. I found myself exactly in this situation, trying to explain things definitively even as I was also scrolling through Telegram to try to learn what happened and how people in Russia –elites and citizens alike – were reacting. To a lot of questions, I did say “I don’t know” or “it’s too early to know.” I probably should have said these phrases more often. The Prigozhin assassination is a complicated affair that occurred in a complicated country from which we have few reliable sources of information. Rather than pretending that we know for certain what happened or can state with clarity the consequences, maybe we all should have a little more humility about the accuracy of our snapshot assessments or our abilities to predict the future in Putin’s Russia.

Government of the Russian Federation via Wikimedia Commons

            First, on what happened. Based on what I have read and what Russians and Russian experts have told me, I believe today that Putin ordered the assassination of his long-time associate. (I reserve the right to change my assessment as more information becomes available.)  Prigozhin’s mutiny two months ago embarrassed Putin. When faced with the challenge of stopping the Wagner mercenaries by using military force or negotiating with Prigozhin, Putin went on television to tell his citizens that he was going to crush the traitors but then backed down. It was humiliating. Putin looked weak.  It was a matter of time before he sought revenge.  As I wrote the Journal of Democracy back in June

“Given Putin’s track record of seeking revenge against alleged traitors, including those living in exile abroad (the assassination of Sergey Litvinenko in London and the attempted assassinations of Sergey Skripal in Salisbury, U.K., and Aleksandr Poteyev in Miami), Putin is probably not done with Prigozhin yet. If Prigozhin dies mysteriously, that will send a powerful message to other would-be coup plotters.”

So that’s what most likely happened yesterday. Putin killed the man who betrayed him and embarrassed him.

            And yet there are still many unanswered questions. Most mysteriously, if Putin considered Prigozhin a traitor after his attempted mutiny last June, why did he treat him so well over the last two months? Prigozhin went out of his way to explain that his mutiny – he called it a “March of Justice” – was never against Putin, but instead aimed to replace the top leadership of the Russian armed forces for their poor performance in prosecuting the war in Ukraine. After Putin negotiated a deal with Prigozhin two months ago, you could have been lulled into thinking that Putin and the mercenary were back on good terms. Prigozhin most certainly was. Prigozhin was not forced permanently into exile in Belarus, as we originally thought he might be, but was allowed to come back to Russia and travel to Africa.  Putin even met with Prigozhin in July.  Why? Most shockingly, on the sidelines of Putin’s summit with African leaders in St. Petersburg recently, Prigozhin was allowed to have his own sidebar meetings with several of these African officials. Why?  Putin and his intelligence organizations most likely were using these two months to follow Prigozhin, including listening to phone calls and reading other forms of communication, to uncover Wagner supporters and sympathizers within the Russian regular armed forces, intelligence agencies, and other government bodies.  That pro-Wagner General Sergey Surovikin was removed from his command the day before Prigozhin was assassinated was no coincidence. But the lengths that Putin went to create the appearance of normality regarding his relationship with Prigozhin for the two months before he killed him was odd, so odd that it has fueled some speculation that Putin maybe didn’t even order the assassination himself, but those within the armed forces who really hated Prigozhin took the action independently, knowing that Putin would have no choice but to defend their action. By the way, a similar mystery still surrounds who ordered the assassination of Russian opposition leader, Boris Nemtsov in 2015. I think it was Putin who ordered Prigozhin’s assassination. (I think the same about Nemtsov’s murder) But I don’t know for certain. We probably never will.

            The implications of this murder are even murkier. As I said with many others on television yesterday when put in the spot to react to the breaking news, Putin’s grip on power within his regime is stronger as a result of this assassination. Putin eliminated a threat -- a charismatic leader who commanded thousands of trained soldiers. He also sent a strong signal of deterrence, as I wrote back in June, to future would-be coup plotters.

At the same time, we should not overstate the upside of this assassination for Putin and his power over the long run, especially his ability to project power abroad.

Most obviously, Putin has now weakened if not destroyed a key instrument for his power projection overseas. Wagner fighters in Africa, Syria, and Ukraine advanced Putin’s foreign policy objectives.  A weakened or a dismantled Wagner takes that tool away from Putin. Ukrainians are rightly celebrating Prigozhin’s assassination. Wagner thugs are unlikely to ever kill Ukrainians again. That’s a good outcome for Ukraine and a bad outcome for Putin.

Perhaps more importantly, though also much harder to assess, Prigozhin’s assassination could be demoralizing for parts of the Russian elite, society, and soldiers. Of course, measuring public opinion about anything in Russia today is extremely difficult. No one has an incentive to express what they really believe. But some early signals and some non-events give us hints about public sentiment. I have not seen one senior Russian official say, “good job” (molodets) to Putin’s action yesterday. I worked at the White House when President Obama took the decision to kill Osama bin Laden in May 2011. That evening, people gathered near the White House to celebrate that action. You have not and will not see any pro-Putin demonstrations in Moscow or St. Petersburg to celebrate the elimination of this traitor, because Putin himself won’t even call Prigozhin a traitor, just a long-time colleague who made mistakes.  In fact, Russians are laying flowers at Wagner headquarters to honor Prigozhin, “the traitor.”

Putin is navigating this delicate messaging because he knows that Prigozhin was a hero to many Russians, including some Russian soldiers, that is privates not generals. It’s too dangerous for Putin to claim credit for killing Prigozhin. Pro-Kremlin propagandist Sergey Markov has already blamed the Ukrainians. Remember all the people seeking selfies with the Wagner commander in Rostov during his mutiny? Remember how many Russians got on Telegram to praise the critical statements that Prigozhin was making about the Russian high command two months ago? With great bravado, Wagner mercenaries are already promising revenge. I think that’s unlikely. Putin and his intelligence agencies by now must have every one of these Wagner mercenaries under close surveillance. But their videos posted on Telegram most likely (again, we have to guess as there are no opinion polls of Russian soldiers!) reflect a dour mood among some Russian soldiers in reaction to this assassination. After all, they were fighting side-by-side with Wagner mercenaries in Ukraine just a few months ago. As Russian war blogger Roman Saponkov told the Financial Times,  “The assassination of Prigozhin will have disastrous consequences. The people who gave the order do not understand the mood in the army and morale at all.”  

This is not a black-and-white story. And this story is not over. In killing Prigozhin, Putin achieved a short-term victory of consolidating his power at home.  In the long term, however, the negative consequences for Putin’s ability to achieve his foreign policy objectives abroad, especially in Ukraine, may outweigh the short-term gains. Watch this space.