The initial noises about the Prigozhin affair have quieted down. The social media followers of the Ukraine war have been lately more preoccupied with the possibility of the Kiev cretins doing something at the Zaporezhne nuclear power plant. The futile Ukrainian offensive against the Russian army has become boring.
There is no chance of a Chernobyl like meltdown at the Zaporezhne plant, despite concerns of many commentators, even the seeming desires of some of them. The plant is in cold shutdown, though there is spent fuel rods at the plant. The supply of cooling water for the rods is from the reservoir which the Ukies blew, but there is also a backup pond to supply water for some time.
It should be much more concerning that the Ukronazi lunatics will do something at one of the up and running nuclear plants on their territory, in their campaign to draw NATO countries directly into the war. These people seem to be capable of almost anything. It is becoming more evident that the western intelligence services are having a hard time keeping them under control, as the Germans did the Banderites of world war two.
One thing they are clearly not capable of is defeating the Russian army in a conventional war, no matter how much material the west sends them. The only way the Russians could lose would be to defeat themselves, to fall apart internally. Unfortunately, that no longer seems out of the question since the Prigozhin fiasco.
I am an old follower of things Russian. While there are many things I admire about the Russian people, I have long noted some serious problems with the present Russian state. I have mentioned these problems along with my bloggings in support of Russia’s able defense against western aggression.
The Atlanticist empire has some understanding of these weaknesses. It seems to be what they are pinning their hopes on in their conflict with the Russian state. They have a very long tradition of dividing from within any resistance to their domination.
The weak points of the third Russian republic come from the way it came together after the fall of the Soviet Union. The fall had come about because a generation of the Communist party elite had entered power who no longer believed in the state. They were cynical and opportunistic.
When Gorbachev bungled attempts to reorganize the economy, they had the opportunity to connive with western intelligence services and wreck the Soviet State. They assumed they were going to grab large pieces of the country’s wealth, make themselves a new aristocracy, and integrate with western capitalism. They became the oligarchs.
Attempts to establish democracy at that time were suppressed. However, there was by that time a well developed government infrastructure in Russia, with a commitment to keep things running properly. There was also an army and security services who understood that the old Soviet order was not working and had to go, but wanted Russian independence maintained.
After a decade of disorder, Russians had become very disillusioned with western capitalism. Putin emerged as a compromise between the state, the public, and the oligarchs. He was able to get things working again in Russia and to create some degree of social harmony.
The essence of Putin’s way of governing seems to be this; he is an oligarch himself. He is, or was, very pro western in his outlook. However, he understands that the Russian people and State are not going to tolerate being absorbed by the west into a colonial status.
Over two decades of governing, he and the people around him have gradually become fully disillusioned with the west. He has come to realize that most of the way he has governed has been a mistake. Nonetheless he is now stuck with the way he has built his system.
Nonetheless, Putin is a very competent manager and politician. Yet the political system he has created is shaky and temporary. Everything depends on him and when he goes, there does not seem to be anyone anything to replace him.
The state apparatus is satisfied that infrastructures are working and the country is moderately prosperous. Putin has been very good at maintaining public support and approval. The aging oligarchs have been allowed to keep their ill gotten wealth as long as they do not threaten Putin’s system.
There are some democratic centers of opposition to Putin’s government and they have things to be critical about. The communist party is still very influential. There are several independent think tanks and policy institutes which are critical of Putin’s government, especially of its economic management.
There is still far too much corruption and cronyism in the Russian government. This always comes from a lack of real, democratic oversight. Putin is said to set up competing power centers, and to keep them dependent on him.
This is, as said, a shaky way to run things. It implies that his hold on power is not as secure as it appears. It is also hard to understand what these competing centers are.
I have always been slightly skeptical about Putin. Despite his obvious competence, he has always seemed a bit phony. He does ridiculous public stunts; petting animals, competing in sports he is not very good at, showing up in places where he really has nothing to do.
He has changed the rules to keep himself in power, most notably by lengthening presidential terms and removing term limits. During the time when he had to step aside and let Medvedev take the office of president, the ways by which he would humiliate Medvedev, to show who was really in charge, became a national and international source of amusement. Yet criticism of government is tolerated in Russia; no one gets gulaged anymore for having an opinion.
An apparent big problem with Putin is his a misguided sense of loyalty to those he considers his friends. His relation to Yevgeny Prigozhin would be the prime example of this. Priggy is a strange character for someone like Putin to become friendly with and has ended up causing him a lot of trouble.
Prigozhin has no education and began life as a street hoodlum. He got himself sent to jail for nine years for robbery. When he got out he ran a hot dog cart.
In the years immediately after the fall of the Soviet Union, he became wealthy in mysterious ways. He also became acquainted with Putin. He acquired a catering business and ran a number of good quality restaurants.
His firm gained numerous government contracts for supplying food. At one point this enterprise was responsible for giving a large number of children food poisoning, but faced no penalties. He supplied meals and other services to the Russian army.
Prigozhin started the Wagner mercenary company in 2014 to assist the Donbass republics fighting for freedom from the Ukraine Nazis. Until the Russia/Ukraine war broke out, he concealed his involvement in the firm. Wagner became a useful instrument for Russian policy, operating very successfully in Africa.
It is a good guess that Prigozhin’s falling out with the Russian government had to do with the suspension of his supply and catering contracts with the Russian army. When Russia began mobilizing for war in autumn of 2022, the poor quality of supplies to the troops quickly became an issue. It was said then that private interests with these supply contracts were often finding themselves in trouble with state authorities, especially defense minister Shoigu and Chief of Staff Gerasimov.
These are the people Prigozhin claimed to have started his revolt in order to remove. His public tirades against these people, for supposedly not supplying the Wagner troops with enough ammunition, sound like typical sociopath’s reactions to having dishonest activities disposed. That is, accuse the accusers of something like what you are yourself guilty of.
The Wagner force was very useful to the Russian war effort. It was an effective strike force when Russia found its own infantry not well trained for that type of fighting. However, as the regular Russian army gained experience, Wagner seemed to be outliving its usefulness and becoming a liability.
Clearly Prigozhin was motivated by the loss of status and revenues due to his fall from favor. However, while he is clearly a bit unstable mentally, he is far from stupid. He would not have started this adventure had he not been sure he had some support and protection.
The nature of this support is the big question. Western intelligence services seem to have been one sinister element in this matter. At one point Prigozhin was suddenly repeating a lot of western propaganda lines about the war; a Ukrainian attack on Donbass had not really been imminent, and so on.
There still seems to be a lot of very wealthy people in Russia, whose wealth depends on monopolies of one kind or other, and who have substantial private armies. They usually lay very low but are clearly people Putin and his government must reckon with. Such people would not be happy with a war which might reduce the flow of profits to them.
They would be very sensitive to efforts to end graft, cronyism, and corruption. That is because they are grafters, cronies, and corrupters. Many of them relied on support from western intelligence services during the Soviet collapse to acquire their wealth, and likely still have contacts there.
Considering what he did, Prigozhin has been handled very delicately by the Putin government. The Belarus president, Lukashenko, has been even more kind to Priggy, allowing him to find asylum in that country, along with those Wagnerians who participated in the rebellion. Yet he has broken his commitments to Lukashenko and seems to be moving around Russia at will.
The upshot is that the Russian state is not as invincible as it seems. It is unbeatable militarily and robust economically. However, there is a powerful element in the country which seems independent from the state. They could act as a ‘fifth column’ in the conflict with the Atlantic empire.
Russian history contains plenty of episodes where the good of the nation was harmed by cliques of grandees who felt their personal interests were more important. No country should tolerate the presence of such people. A country under attack the way Russia is really cannot tolerate people who owe their privileges to the attackers.
The solution for this problem is a more democratic system in Russia. Everything cannot depend on one man, no matter how able. A strong social base is required, as well as sharp restrictions on wealth and privilege.
I have been asked, Russian government is shaky compared to what? Actually, most countries are not very well governed. They have similar problems to the Russians.
However, most countries do not face the challenges Russia does. It has become one of the leaders of global resistance to global imperialism and thus is under intense attack. It needs to measure up to that status and in some ways it does not.
This is why the Prigozhin matter has been so harmful to Russia and therefore to the security of the planet. Colonized countries have looked to Russia as a leader and an example, but now are looking more to China. China really is an exemplar; a really stable system with a really powerful economy and military.
Wagner has had a good business providing African countries with security against western destabilization. Now these countries are said to be engaging Chinese ‘private military companies’, (PMCs).
Perhaps Russia needs to start looking at China as an example as well.