Marija Carter: ‘Even though it would have been the act of a fucked-up psychopath’ — Wagner Group’s Prigozhin keeps teasing Putin towards nuclear escalation
‘Putin’s Chef’ is increasingly publicly critical of the ‘opportunities missed’ by the death cult that is the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
In his latest interview, he observed that while deploying nuclear weapons on a territory that Russia considers to be inhabited by our own estranged kin would now be ‘counterproductive,’ Putin should have ‘pressed the button… earlier… even though it would have been the act of a fucked-up psychopath.’
It has been 10 days since the drone bombing in Moscow. One of the attack drones had lingered around the neighbourhood where my Russian family lives. These intrusions demonstrate the fragility of the very centre of the Federation’s geopolitical power. Russian dissenter Alexei Navalny had narrowly survived an assassination attempt, heroically returned to Russia anyway, and had been thrown in jail for potentially decades. So how, in such a context and at such a time, is Prigozhin ‘permitted’ to air his explicit grievances about the Russian senior political and army command’s incompetence, and openly call for Sergei Shoigu, the defence minister, to be put on trial and shot, together with his staff? How can the notorious mad-dog former catering entrepreneur be seen as such an asset or such a threat?
Prigozhin is known for his close association with the famously reserved and increasingly paranoid Putin. The ‘trusted confidant’ reputation allowed him to expand his business empire, most notably the Glavset. This troll farm had been involved in spreading enormously large-reach disinformation material in online influence campaigns both domestically and internationally, including the 2016 US presidential election. In addition to the resulting indictment by the US Department of Justice, both the US and the EU imposed sanctions directly on Prigozhin and his companies.
However, successfully interfering with the US election ecosystem is not Prigozhin’s magnum opus. That title goes to the Wagner Group, a private military company. Founded by Dmitry Utkin, an ex-Special Operation Forces officer, the PMC operates as a paramilitary force available to several clients and primarily to the Russian government. Feared for its brutality and largely criminal and alt-right composition, its activities are shrouded in secrecy. Wagner was deployed in conflicts in Libya in support of General Khalifa Haftar, in CAR and Sudan for guarding gold mines, in Mali against Islamic militant groups, and from 2015 in Syria on the side of al-Assad. The Group was involved in the capture of Palmyra and al-Shaer including the execution of al-Ismail, in regaining control of Damascus and in the Battle of Khasham. Prigozhin had been personally funding the group’s operation in various of these conflict zones, including the PMC’s newest engagement: Ukraine.
Wagner has deployed their fighters to support pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine, including especially the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk. The group’s fighters have been present in multiple crucial battles and have suffered notable casualties. Their mercenaries have been accused of severe human rights violations, including the targeting of civilians, extra-judicial killings and operating with the breaking of the morale of the nation designated as an objective, all of which are war crimes under the Geneva Conventions.
The Russian government has never officially acknowledged its connection to the Wagner Group; in theory, PMCs are outlawed in Russia. However, the closeness of the ties could not be more obvious. Russian military personnel had been proudly showcasing their fights alongside Wagner, and there are undeniable reports that the Group receives support, funding, and logistical assistance from Russian government entities.
All the while the PMC’s chief publicly blames Shoigu and Gerasimov for the deaths and injuries of tens of thousands of Russian soldiers, claiming that he ‘will make sure they will bear responsibility for it.’ It is impossible to ascertain what prompted Prigozhin’s change of — the rotting void where a heart might normally be.
As Samantha de Bendern observes, ‘the question remains whether Prigozhin is controlled by the Kremlin, or is a loose cannon posing a serious threat to the regime. Since in Russia nothing is ever as it seems, this either/or question is probably far too simple.’
As extreme as Putin’s modus operandi is, the fact of the matter remains that in the Russian political landscape, he might well be seen as a centrist, given the utter vileness and delusion of the most pro-war fringes of his circle.
It is an extensive tradition in grand-power politics to let your affiliates do your heavy lifting on potentially controversial issues. A classic continental example can be found in the Brexit campaign. While Johnson’s team was aware that stirring up xenophobia is integral to the success of their cause, the risks of associating such messaging with the established Conservative Party were too immense to be run with confidence from the early stages. Therefore, the Johnson & Cummings contingent welcomed Farage’s unhinged willingness to engage this spectre of their own demographic. While that predictably translated into a fair share of his criticism being targeted at them, they correctly calculated that Farage will convert the far-right market for their cause, while they themselves can keep their hands clean of any potential consequences of such a campaign, such as the murder of Jo Cox and the 2016 rise in violent hate crime across Britain.
Similarly, Putin uses extremists to position himself as a rational leader. The centre relocates as more and more deranged characters join the narrative, and can render his (by all accounts egregious) stances appear sensible in comparison with his strategically endorsed fanatics.
This slant is one of the possible explanations for Putin’s inaction in the face of Prigozhin’s charges. He could be priming the Russian populace for another chapter of the invasion, and therefore sense the need to radicalise them further — by risking some of his political capital by Prigozhin, he can move what constitutes a ‘moderate viewpoint.’ Additionally, Putin can be using the presence he is affording to Prigozhin to scare his political counterparts, signalling to them that their positions (and indeed, lives) are never truly safe in his regime.
Prigozhin comments about the desirability of the use of Russia’s nuclear weapons in Ukraine would suggest such an interpretation of his general undertaking. Putin is well aware that adding the nuclear dimension to a conflict his army is observably failing to conclude to Russia’s satisfaction would be nothing short of suicide.
The West suffered several humiliating demonstrations of its fallibility and often misplaced belief in its might and mandate. However, its approach to the invasion of Ukraine had been much more pragmatic than the Russian one and proved infinitely superior. The sanctions framework started with a bang but afforded plenty of room for further and further tightening of the noose around the Russian economy. It is designed to never give the Russian command the impression that nothing worse can possibly be yet to come.
Likewise, no single entity on Earth needed this war more than NATO. The organisation resurrected itself to legitimacy, brushed aside any Western questions as to its constitutionality and the litany of war crime evidence from its extraterritorial adventures, and managed to assist Ukraine to hold off the ruthless invasion of its paramount geopolitical rival. The accession of Finland on 4 April 2023 doubled the size of the Russia/NATO border.
Conversely, no single entity on Earth needed this war less than Russia. To survive, Putin needs to come back with a scalp the size of Donbas. And insinuating that someone in his publicly available close circle advocates for him to use nuclear weapons is one of the only cards he is still holding.
Russia maintains a mutual agreement with China regarding its ‘no first use’ nuclear policy, and it would render its economy utterly unviable to sabotage its relationship with Beijing in any way. By default, any nuclear fantasies must therefore come from the pens of those sufficiently removed from Moscow. The primary objective of the Kremlin’s nuclear policy is to deter its adversaries from direct attacks on Russia. Nuclear weapons are seen as a critical component of its overall defence strategy indeed, and Russia invests heavily in its nuclear triad’s modernisation with projects such as the RS-28 Sermat ICBM programme, the Burevestnik cruise missiles and the Avangard hypersonic glide vehicles. However, a nuclear attack in Ukraine remains unlikely. Putin’s escalation control had been surprisingly stable in contrast with his incoherent decision to invade in the first place.
That, however, brings upon another possible explanation for Prigozhin’s impunity in his calls for the execution of senior Moscow command. Russia already needs someone to blame for the disastrous project, and Putin appears increasingly out of touch with reality. Much like Stalin, dying alone on the floor of his bedroom the whole night as his doctors cringe by the door, too afraid to intervene in fear of his wrath, Putin’s generals have seen his opposition die for much less than what they did to Russia’s view of itself.
There is a viable chance that Putin’s regime is no longer anywhere calculating enough to pull off any high-end geopolitics manoeuvring. It could well be that there is no grand plan to decipher. Maybe indeed, the cigar is just a cigar — and the lunatic Chef is nothing but the first of many fanatics that are forming a line to erect something even viler in the place of Putin’s mega project, be it with him or over his dead body.
Russia has exhausted itself: it is estimated that their meat grinder of a ‘special military operation’ took the lives of over 200 000 soldiers. While the majority of the world continues to trade with Moscow for one reason or another, it is actively supported only by Belarus and Iran. Nobody is coming to miraculously save Russia, not even the magic of the split of an atom. A loose canon will eventually point your way too, and Putin is increasingly failing to demonstrate that he has his insane Wagner dog on a firmly gripped leash.
Moscow is going to lose this war — the only question is just how terribly. All there is left to do is to mitigate. Whether Prigozhin’s role is to appease the far-right spectre of the Russian population, to make Putin’s stance seem more rational, to scare his potentially wavering political circle into submission and NATO into greater compliance, or whether he is a time bomb, one thing is certain: he is a symptom of a regime that is already dead, and merely does not know it yet.
Composed by Marija Carter for Denuclearise.com on 9th of June 2023
