An unpredictable paramilitary leader mounts a direct challenge to his nation’s leadership. Government aircraft fire on rebel forces rapidly approaching the capital. An embattled president delivers an emergency address on state-run television and accuses his enemies of treason before cutting a deal to ensure he remains in office and his antagonist goes free.
That stunning sequence of events played out over the weekend in Russia, a supposed “great power” that until recently was mentioned in national security circles in the same breath as the U.S. and China at the top of the international pecking order. For decades, the ostensible dangers posed by Russia and its military — and its status as the world’s top nuclear power — have been the basis for America’s major troop presence in Europe. Some specialists say the U.S. footprint now deserves a second look, given the obvious limits of Russia’s capabilities and competence.
The debate poses a bitter irony for President Vladimir Putin, a onetime KGB agent who has grounded his two-decade grip on the Kremlin on his supposed role in restoring Russian pride and Russian power after the humiliating defeat of the Soviet Union and a decade of decline.
Russia’s status as a bona fide 21st-century power was placed in doubt with its military’s poor performance in Ukraine, its relatively weak economy and its increasing international isolation as democracy and human rights withered at home. The economy faces even more uncertainty in the years to come as Europe rapidly frees itself from Russian oil and gas, the country’s financial lifeblood.
Analysts say the short-lived mutiny led by Yevgeny Prigozhin and his mercenary Wagner Group has cast an even harsher spotlight on the reality of the Russian state. They say it resembles a declining empire grappling with its slow, painful death — less of a modern-day global leader and more of a zombie superpower.
“The origins of what we saw play out over the weekend started back in 1991, when the collapse of the Soviet Union started, and I don’t think it’s finished,” said Luke Coffey, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute.
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“I think it’s an ongoing collapse, and I think historians 200 years from now will write about the era that was the collapse of the Soviet Union and probably identify [Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on] Feb. 24, 2022, as the most consequential moment in this collapse,” he said at a forum Monday hosted by the think tank. “And I think what we saw in … the Wagner rebellion, march toward Moscow, was simply a part of this process, and it’s certainly unfinished business. Anybody who thinks Prigozhin is going to cool off … and the Wagner Group is no longer going to play a role is hopelessly naive. We are in the very beginning stages of what I think will be a major power struggle inside Russia in the coming months.”
The power structure established by Mr. Putin, in which he wields ultimate authority over various factions competing with one another for influence and wealth, now seems to be coming undone.
Rather than a powerful player on the world stage, Russia is now a country in full-blown crisis, specialists say.
“This episode seriously undermined one of Putin’s core claims to political legitimacy: that without him, the country would spiral back into the chaos Russians experienced during the 1990s,” said Simon Miles, a professor at Duke University who studies Russia extensively. “Prigozhin’s success, with credible reports of parts of the military going over to his side, called into question the basic ability of the Kremlin to preserve order at home, never mind the disastrous invasion of its neighbor.
“This is a disaster of Putin’s own creation,” Mr. Miles said.
‘Aura of invincibility’ gone
SEE ALSO: Moscow drops criminal charges against Wagner Group chief in leading rebellion
Mr. Prigozhin, an ex-convict and restaurateur turned paramilitary leader who found his way into Mr. Putin’s inner circle, has become a central player in Russia’s dysfunctional political drama. After months of open feuding with leaders of the Russian military, Mr. Prigozhin and his ruthless hired-gun forces seized control of government buildings in the city of Rostov-on-Don and began moving toward Moscow on Saturday.
He suggested that he was prepared to mount an assault on the city to force out Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and other officials he considers incompetent and responsible for Russia’s military failures in Ukraine. Mr. Prigozhin eventually called off the assault to avoid spilling “Russian blood,” he said, and struck a deal with the Kremlin after an eleventh-hour mediation by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.
For the U.S. and Europe, Moscow’s huge stockpile of nuclear weapons remains a significant danger and is the single greatest wild card in any discussion involving Russia, its military ambitions and its potential impact on 21st-century security. Mr. Putin this month confirmed that he would station tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, once again stoking fears that he may employ such weapons if the conflict in Ukraine continues to go poorly.
Outside of its nuclear capabilities, the Russian military is greatly limited. Its expected quick victory in Ukraine has become a protracted war, with Russian forces now on the defensive as Ukrainian fighters mount a fierce counteroffensive.
Russia’s failings in Ukraine and its domestic instability have added fuel to the American debate about how much money and manpower Washington should contribute to protecting Europe from a theoretical Russian invasion. President Trump made that debate a cornerstone of his foreign policy approach, arguing that U.S. resources would be much better spent in the Pacific to deal with an increasingly aggressive China.
The dual developments of Russia’s poor performance in Ukraine and the Wagner rebellion should forever change that calculation, said Rajan Menon, director of grand strategy at the think tank Defense Priorities, which advocates a more restrained American military role abroad.
“Putin expected quick success when he invaded Ukraine. In the event, a protracted war against a much weaker adversary has now produced political turmoil within Russia and the biggest challenge he has ever faced. No matter how this crisis ends, his aura of invincibility has dissipated,” he said.
“Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has proved that the Russian army, contrary to the assessments of experts within and outside the American government, suffers from significant weakness and lacks the wherewithal to attack Europe,” he said. “The correct lesson to be drawn, therefore, is that Europe … is fully capable of defending itself and that there is no compelling reason for it to continue its long-standing reliance on American protection against Russia.”
Some observers say the Russian armed forces might not have been capable of putting down the Wagner rebellion if it came to a pitched battle outside Moscow.
John Herbst, former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, said Monday that Mr. Putin was willing to quickly drop his charges of treason against Mr. Prigozhin because he felt he had little choice.
“I think Putin did that because he wasn’t sure that his military would rise to the challenge of stopping Prigozhin,” Mr. Herbst told CNN.
Unable to score major victories in Ukraine and keep a lid on crises at home, Mr. Putin’s Russia appears to be in a different class than the U.S. and China. For the past several years, those three nations were routinely grouped together in strategic U.S. documents that described the “great power competition” of the 21st century.
That changed in the White House National Security Strategy in October. The document seems to consider Russia, compared with China, as less of a direct military challenger to the U.S. and certainly not an equal adversary, though it makes clear that Moscow’s willingness to launch an unprovoked war on its neighbor has made for a dramatically more dangerous world.
The report casts Russia as an “immediate and persistent threat to international peace and stability” while presenting China as the true overarching threat this century.
China, the report says, “is the only competitor with both the intent to reshape the international order and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military and technological power to do it.”
• Ben Wolfgang can be reached at bwolfgang@washingtontimes.com.
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