Putin’s two-faced tirades over the Wagner mutiny could still be his undoing

Claiming treachery one minute, then praising Wagner’s role in Ukraine the next, may have allowed the Russian leader to steer out of an immediate storm, writes Mary Dejevsky. But such mixed messages expose cracks in his authority that will be hard to repair

Russian president Vladimir Putin during his address honouring Russia’s armed forces outside the Kremlin (Sputnik/Reuters)

Russian president Vladimir Putin has addressed military officers in the Kremlin, in a televised ceremony that was clearly intended to demonstrate three things: that the mutiny at the weekend was over; that Russia’s armed forces were united; and that the president was in the Kremlin with his authority intact. While many will remain sceptical, more important is how convincing such a show will have been to Russians.

It’s worth revisiting some of what had unfolded in the previous 72 hours. At 10am Moscow time on Saturday, Putin made an unscheduled television broadcast breathing fire and slaughter against an armed mutiny in the south of the country and threatening severe punishment for the (unnamed) “traitors”. Ten hours later, it was announced that the chief mutineer, Yevgeny Prigozhin, had accepted a deal mediated by the president of Belarus, under the terms of which he agreed to go into exile in return for immunity from prosecution, while those of his mercenary force who did not follow him into exile were transferred to the command of the Russian armed forces.

At 10.10pm on Monday evening – a strange time to address the nation – Putin made another unscheduled broadcast that combined these positions, but still contained fury. The Russian president recognised Prigozhin’s Wagner group fighters as doughty heroes for their contribution to Russian victories in Ukraine, even as he condemned their leader as a threat to the state.

Meanwhile, Prigozhin’s situation remained uncertain. Monday morning saw no mention of an amnesty; instead, there was word of a case – over armed rebellion – still in progress. In the evening, Prigozhin put out a video via his usual means of communication, the Telegram social media channel, denying that his aborted march to Moscow had been an attempted coup, and the next morning – Tuesday – the FSB (Russia’s security service) announced that the charge had been dropped. A few hours later, there were reports that a plane, believed to be that of Prigozhin, had landed in Belarus. And a few hours after that, Belarusian state media reported President Alexander Lukashenko as confirming Prigozhin had arrived in the country.

Any physical threat to the Russian state, it would appear, had been removed. But where does this leave the real balance of power? And remember, after many decades of practice, Russians are past masters at reading signals.

An initial impression might be that, perhaps, after some to-ing and fro-ing, Prigozhin delayed his departure. Or did the FSB resist dropping charges? The Belarus-brokered deal has been honoured, and all is right again in the Russian world. But such a conclusion would probably be premature.

That Putin has felt the need to pay public tribute to the Wagner forces for their role in Ukraine suggests that Prigozhin’s continuing influence cannot be excluded. If some – even the bulk – of his erstwhile troops sign up to Russian military command, what guarantee that they will fight as fiercely or loyally as they did for their former commander? A similar gloss might be put on the confusion about whether Prigozhin (and his forces) could face prosecution. Prominent Russians were calling for them to be treated as traitors. Putin has retreated from that – but this anti-Prigozhin constituency will remain, and will regard him as having ducked a necessary fight.

And what of Russian public opinion? The applause on the streets of Rostov-on-Don as the Wagner fighters left seemed to reflect support rather than an attitude of “good riddance”. How far that support might extend further into Russia is hard to gauge, but social media posts suggest that Prigozhin’s criticisms both of Russia’s conduct of the war and of elite corruption have cut through to an extent, with many Russians perplexed at the poor showing by their regular troops. In attacking the country’s elite, as he has done, not least for their failure to send their sons and daughters to fight, he strikes the same chord as the imprisoned opposition leader, Alexei Navalny.

Yes, those around Putin appear to have remained loyal through the weekend crisis. On Monday, the prime minister, Mikhail Mishustin, and the foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, joined calls to rally around Putin, and played on Moscow’s regular theme of the West trying to sow discord to weaken the Russian war effort. And the defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, it appears, despite Prigozhin’s best efforts, remains in his job.

But what does it say that such calls, and such visual proof as a video of Shoigu examining maps, are considered necessary? Or that Putin inveighs against treachery out of one side of his mouth, while offering praise and amnesties out of the other? Such mixed messages may have enabled him to steer his ship out of the immediate storm, but that storm exposed cracks in the Kremlin’s authority, and in Russia’s war effort, that could be hard to repair.