Welcome to the biggest news story of 2023 so far: an apparent coup or coup-like attempt in Russia.
In the early morning hours of June 24,
Wagner PMC troops departed from Ukraine and turned their sights on the Russian federal authority.
In the weeks prior, the former Kremlin food caterer turned Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin
had been involved in an escalating war of words with the Russian Ministry of Defense.
The MoD had been trying to rein in Russia’s various quasi-independent military arms.
But Prigozhin refused, blaming the MoD’s missteps for trouble in Ukraine.
The day before Wagner’s plot, relations between the two hit a new low,
with Prigozhin releasing a video stating that the invasion—as
originally pitched by Putin in this video—had been predicated on a lie.
Prigozhin then alleges that the MoD bombed Wagner troops,
causing Wagner to take steps to protect itself.
Putin’s initial response was a deafening silence.
Many hours later, he finally released a call to arms of sorts,
instructing Russians to resist the plot and not assist the Wagner traitors. Today,
we are going to cover the four most important takeaways and consequences from the turmoil:
the practical problems that come with the de facto loss of a Russian city,
the coordination game underway for control of Russia itself
how this affects beliefs about the war’s endgame,
and the convenient excuse it gives to Putin to end the war.
But first, let’s talk about the pure logistical problem for Russia going forward.
Early in the morning of June 24th, Wagner transported a large contingent
of its soldiers from Ukraine’s Donetsk oblast and into the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don.
On just the civilian side, this was a major play. Rostov-on-Don had a
population of 1.1 million, making it the eleventh largest city in Russia.
By comparison, the U.S. equivalent would be Jacksonville, Florida.
But there is so much more to it than that.
Rostov-on-Don is the eastern supply hub for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Forget about the potential civil war in Russia. If Rostov-on-Don becomes Rostov Un-Done,
the Ministry of Defense will struggle to continue to pursue the war.
Belgorod and Crimea will take on greater
importance as the northern and southern supply hubs.
But up north Ukraine has worked with Russian
nationals on cross-border raids in the Belgorod region.
And down south earlier in the week, Ukraine conducted a strike on one
of the few crossings between the Crimean peninsula and the mainland.
In other words, all of Russia’s major resupply hubs now face some challenges.
However, at the time of writing, Wagner appeared not to be interfering
with Rostov-on-Don’s logistical efforts to conduct war operations.
But the situation is volatile and it certainly
does not put the Ministry of Defense in a happy position.
The second key point is that a coordination game is now underway in Russia.
In any coup attempt, you have groups that prefer one side over the other.
But a large chunk—if not the vast majority—do not care either way,
and just want to be on the winning side.
The problem for each individual within this group is that the
winner of the coup overall is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
If he thinks that everyone else thinks that Putin is going to win,
then he wants to stay loyal, and that guarantees that Wagner will lose.
But if he thinks that they all think Wagner is going to win,
then he wants to switch loyalties,
and all of a sudden Putin is in trouble purely because people think Putin is in trouble.
If that was not enough of a brain scramble,
the tricky part is that everyone in the middle group faces the same dilemma.
Thus, the key to Wagner’s success is to convince everyone that there
is a common belief in their own inevitability.
If everyone thinks that everyone else thinks the decision is straightforward,
then, well, it is straightforward for everyone.
Of course, this cuts both ways, so Putin’s loyalists will be trying to do the same thing.
In turn, Wagner’s task is to silence the competing narrative.
There are some signs that this could work.
Remember that Wagner’s plan was to travel from Donetsk,
cross a border that was ostensibly closed, enter Rostov-on-Don,
and then surround the military headquarters.
There were many opportunities for regular Russian troops to stop Wagner along the way,
but that did not happen.
Nevertheless, this is not how you go about a standard coup.
Ordinarily, you want to begin the plot by arresting the leader and locking down the capital.
Doing both gives you administrative control and prevents the leader from taking countermeasures.
Accomplish those tasks, and you present a compelling case
to the moderates that you have already won the underlying game.
So all of those ambivalent people side with you, and now you actually have won.
The thing is, Rostov-on-Don is nowhere near Moscow.
And until an open insurrection heats up further north,
it will be hard to get any of the key players to switch sides.
That is why this is probably better described as an armed rebellion rather than a coup.
And actually it is not even clear that Wagner intended either of those at the start of this.
Perhaps instead the goal was to force Putin to make changes within the Ministry of Defense, which
recall that over the last couple of weeks was attempting to exert greater control over Wagner.
However, Putin’s speech foreclosed on that possibility.
And so now the coordination game begins.
There is something deeply ironic about all of this.
Russia went into the war expecting that Ukrainians
would just abandon their leader and submit to Moscow’s authority.
Now it is possible that the war is going to end indeed because citizens abandon their leader—
just not the citizens and the leader that the Kremlin expected.
Now let’s pivot to how this affects the end of the invasion of Ukraine,
first by discussing the informational aspects.
Recall that a major theory for the underlying cause of the war
is a disagreement between Russia and Ukraine over the expected long-term military outcome.
After all, it is difficult to negotiate when there is a yawning gap in their beliefs.
In particular, Russia appears to have calculated that the
West would inevitably lose interest in the war.
At that point, Ukraine would correspondingly lose its chief suppliers,
and Russia would make significant territorial gains with little opposition.
The Wagner opera seems to have busted that idea.
This is going to be the major news story in the West for the foreseeable future.
The more chaos Russia finds itself in, the more Western voters are going to believe
that Russian sanctions and Ukrainian aid policies have been effective.
And with that, the more it is going to be reinforced in the news headlines. That means
the policies are going to become more and more popular, and thus will not be going anywhere.
In less than a day, Russia’s theory of victory became substantially less plausible.
That means that Putin, conditional on surviving,
is more likely to just leave Ukraine rather than throw good money after bad.
Finally, there is an interesting implication for Putin’s private benefits.
This is an alternative theory of war that we have previously covered,
which focuses on Putin’s domestic survival. In short, he may have
feared that settling according to military expectations could cause him to lose office.
As such,
it was better to gamble and hope that things go well, even if such a turnaround was unlikely.
On one hand, we are seeing the negative consequences of such a gamble.
It is not a coincidence that the group that bore the highest price
for Russia’s risky Bakhmut strategy is now fomenting an open rebellion.
But if the Kremlin is successful in eliminating Wagner, it gives
Putin a convenient cover story to end the war:
“My fellow Russian citizens, everything was going fine until Wagner started a rebellion.
That forced us to reorient our troops back to the motherland and now prevents
us from achieving the victory that we deserved. But it’s their fault. Not mine.”
Putin may very well face further challenges after that.
Indeed, his address directly compares the situation to Russia during World War I.
But if he holds on, his leader tenure prospects
might begin looking similar whether he continues the war or just leaves.
And if that is the case, the war may end sooner than most expected two days ago.
With a plausible end in sight, there is no better time to understand what
caused the invasion in the first place. Check below for more information on that.
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Take care.