Stalin had a favorite slogan to clarify why he murdered rivals for energy. ‘No man, no downside,’ the Soviet dictator mentioned.
Today, Vladimir Putin, who sits at Stalin’s desk within the Kremlin, could be savouring the mass assassin’s favorite aphorism.
Wednesday’s dramatic aircraft crash and the reported dying of warmonger Yevgeny Prigozhin and his key aides – who ran the sinister Wagner Group of mercenaries – actually seems to have been a score-settling straight out of the playbook of the unlamented ‘Man of Steel’.
But now a number of questions come up. Has Putin secured himself in energy? With the elimination of the person, has the issue gone away? And what does Prigozhin’s dying imply for the Wagner Group – which only some weeks in the past got here inside a whisker of mounting a revolutionary assault on Moscow?
There is one key distinction between Putin and Stalin. The Soviet chief purged his generals earlier than the warfare, not in the course of one. And when, two months in the past, Prigozhin launched his short-lived, ill-fated mutiny, he shattered Putin’s picture because the unchallenged boss of Russia.
Yevgeny Prigozhin’s (proper) short-lived, ill-fated mutiny, shattered Vladimir Putin’s (left) picture because the unchallenged boss of Russia
Putin’s preliminary – and unprecedented – forigveness now seems like merely one other chess transfer
Now the dictator’s preliminary – and unprecedented – forgiveness of such defiance seems merely like one other chess transfer. Putin pounced when the Wagner boss was simply feeling safe once more, and was again doing the president’s soiled work for him.
In Wednesday’s crash, Putin additionally seems to have taken out Dmitry Utkin, who co-founded Wagner and named it after Hitler’s favorite composer as a result of, in line with the investigative web site Bellingcat, he had ‘an obsessive fascination with the historical past of the Third Reich’.
The downside for Putin is that tens of 1000’s of battle-hardened Wagner troopers, who fought for – and in lots of instances stay completely loyal to – Prigozhin and Utkin, are actually scattered in theatres from Bakhmut in Ukraine to sub-Saharan Africa.
Dismissing them as mere mercenaries motivated solely by money – that’s, merely weapons for rent – could be short-sighted.
True, Prigozhin recruited tens of 1000’s of jailbirds to battle and die for him. But when males take up arms collectively even in a rotten trigger – consider Hitler’s Waffen SS – they develop bonds of comradeship, an esprit de corps. To minimize the top off the snake, as Putin clearly hoped he would possibly, is commonly solely to search out that some new and hideous hydra begins to hiss as a replacement.
In the previous, Putin’s coverage was to get rid of particular rivals after they started to symbolize a risk to him. As China’s murderous Chairman Mao remarked: ‘Kill one, frighten ten thousand.’ But murdering the leaders of a loyal armed militia is a unique story.
Putin pounced when the Wagner boss was simply feeling safe once more, and was again doing the president’s soiled work for him
While Nato forces have little to worry from one other head-on conflict with Wagner’s thugs, Putin ought to nonetheless be afraid of them
Prigozhin imposed a brutal self-discipline, however his males discovered not solely learn how to kill and keep away from being killed, but additionally the lifesaving worth of loyalty. Putin is not going to simply break these bonds.
Since June, the Wagner Group has misplaced its tanks and artillery, handed again to the common Russian military. Its males are primarily in organised items far-off from Russia in Africa, the place they’re invaluable guarding gold mines and different minerals.
They are actually a hazard to the folks there, however not on to the West. In the one direct firefight between Wagner mercenaries and the US navy in Syria in February 2018, the Russians misplaced closely.
But whereas Nato forces have little to worry from one other head-on conflict with Wagner’s thugs, Putin ought to nonetheless be afraid of them. They will show laborious to manage from Moscow, typically 1000’s of miles from the battlefront. And some violent Wagner males, fanatically loyal to their murdered leaders and prepared to serve a brand new Putin-hating patron, may rapidly type a formidable hit squad.
Already some Wagner fighters have made threatening Telegram movies warning: ‘We are getting began, prepare for us.’
Divide and rule has labored for Putin – till now. Now Russia’s most senior navy males can be questioning who’s subsequent for the chop – and that may solely result in contemporary chaos.
Mark Almond is the director of the Crisis Research Institute, Oxford
