(Warsaw) When Yevgeny Prigozhin and his Wagner paramilitary group marched on Moscow, weapons in hand, in the middle of the war against Ukraine, shooting down Russian army helicopters, Vladimir Putin seemed vulnerable like never before in a quarter of a century in power.
A year later, the Russian president seems at the peak of his power.
Prigozhin the mutineer died in a suspicious plane crash two months after his revolt of June 23-24, 2023. His group was de facto refounded and placed under the authority of the Ministry of Defense, the same one that the rebels criticized for its corruption, its incompetence and the slowness of its logistics.
Then, Vladimir Putin attacked ministry executives in the spring of 2024, even if it meant echoing the demands of the mutineers.
Presented as a clean-cut operation against corruption and not as a purge, this initiative landed generals and a deputy minister, Timur Ivanov, in prison. Others were sacked.
The Russian president “exercises direct and constant control over all the most important actors,” he continues. There is no longer any question of allowing anyone the autonomy that Prigojine had, or of appointing a soldier capable of controlling the loyalty of the troops.
Sergei Shoigu, his loyal Minister of Defense, is transferred to a prestigious but much less prominent post.
Mr. Putin entrusted the ministry to a technocrat, the economist Andrei Belousov. Among the latter’s deputies, the Russian president places a cousin, Anna Tsiviliova, and Pavel Fradkov, son of the former prime minister and former head of the foreign intelligence services (SVR) Mikhail Fradkov.
“The military corporation is one of those that in theory could play a more political role […] and Putin’s method has been to not let anyone from it become the head of the corporation,” Mr. Petrov sums up.
The message sent is also that he is not cleaning up the Ministry of Defense because of the political-military pressure exerted by Wagner, but by choice and necessity.
Because if Moscow has had the initiative on the battlefield since the fall, Russia remains entangled in a war that it believed it could win in a few days. And it fails to make a breakthrough, despite its advantage in men and weapons.
“The fact that [Putin] can take these steps, attacking the interests and income of senior military officials, is proof of his strength, not his weakness,” notes Nigel Gould-Davies, a Russia researcher. at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
Just before this big clean-up, the master of the Kremlin also consolidated his omnipotence with a tailor-made victory in the presidential election in March, with 87% of the votes.
A month earlier, his number one enemy, opposition figure Alexei Navalny, died in murky conditions in his Arctic prison, without sparking mass protests in the country.
The election shows that he can “do what he wants”, notes Mr. Gould-Davies, “the expression of his domination is that he can do anything”.
“Putin’s power is more personal than ever,” the expert concludes.
On the political front, the opposition has quite simply been eradicated within the country and each week brings its litany of condemnations of ordinary citizens, opponents or journalists who have criticized the regime or who have publicly mentioned the abuses of which the regime is accused. Russia in Ukraine.
“Between the repressive measures and the exemplary prison sentences imposed on various people, he intimidated and brought into line a large part of the population,” summarizes Mr. Gould-Davies.
The expert notes that we should not confuse a lack of distrust with enthusiasm.
Moreover, a year ago, onlookers applauded Wagner’s troops who had taken control, without shooting, of the headquarters of the Russian army for the invasion of Ukraine in the city of Rostov-sur- the gift.
“There is no widespread enthusiasm for Putin or war,” Mr Gould-Davies said, but “the lessons of the Wagner mutiny have been learned and make it less likely that he will be challenged in this way in the future.”