Russian President Vladimir Putin could lose his grip on power within months, according to a prominent international relations theorist and a top analyst of Russia’s security networks.
“I would not be at all surprised if that regime comes tumbling down, you know, in the next few months,” Stanford University’s Francis Fukuyama said Wednesday at the Aspen Security Forum.
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If the end of Putin’s history proves to be at hand, it may serve as a cautionary tale of the incompetence that autocratic rule can produce in the absence of a robust debate, he suggested. And while Wagner Group warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin’s brief and dramatic uprising did not put a period on Putin’s existence, it could prove to be a semicolon of sorts, as Prigozhin demonstrated “how feasible a change of power is” in the full view of other Russian power players and society, as Bellingcat’s lead Russia investigator, Christo Grozev, observed.
“This gave an idea that this is doable, and [doable] even without support and origination from the security services, it’s doable,” Grozev, a Bulgarian journalist who explained that he fled Austria for the United States after “several law enforcement agencies” warned that he was a target for Russia’s assassins, said. “But what if it [were to be] supported by the FSB? So, that’s why Putin is weakened, because of this image of how it can be done.”
Prigozhin abandoned his dramatic march on Moscow amid behind-the-scenes negotiations and a perhaps-unexpected response from Putin and the FSB, which declared his uprising to be an “armed mutiny” despite his statement that he would not challenge “presidential power” or the internal security services. Yet Grozev’s analysis dovetailed with a bracing criticism offered by British spy chief Richard Moore, the head of the United Kingdom’s Secret Intelligence Service, who lampooned Putin during a rare public appearance in Prague earlier Wednesday.
“Prigozhin started off as a traitor at breakfast. He had been pardoned by supper and then a few days later he was invited for tea,” Moore told Politico, referring to the Kremlin’s recent statement that Putin met with Prigozhin on June 29. “I don’t think it needs all the resources of MI6 to conclude that there are deep fractures within the Russian elite around Putin. … The extraordinary thing was to see the way that Putin handled that, and the weakness that that demonstrated.”
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko took credit for brokering a deal to avoid a major struggle for control of the capital, and Putin subsequently announced that Prigozhin and Wagner Group fighters would be permitted to leave the country for Belarus. The Wagner Group boss, once known as “Putin’s chef” due to restaurant and catering businesses before the launch of his paramilitary career, emerged this week with a new video showcasing their new positions in Belarus.
“What’s happening now at the front is a disgrace, and there’s no need for us to join in. And [we’ll] wait for the moment when we can show full-on what we’re made of,” Prigozhin said in the video, per a Meduza translation. “Therefore, it’s been decided that we’ll be here in Belarus for some time. During this time — and I’m sure of this — we’ll turn the Belarusian army into the second-best army in the world. And if necessary, we’ll stand up for them, if needed.”
That promise throws “domestic politics in Russia [into] chaos,” according to Grozev, who interpreted it as a sign that Prigozhin will fortify Lukashenko’s regime against the creeping annexation that Putin has appeared to pursue in recent years.
“What Putin had planned for the 2024 elections, barring a victory in Ukraine which is now not on the horizon, he was planning to annex Belarus. … This is no longer possible because Lukashenko acquired an army that will defend him from that,” Grozev said. “Putin can no longer easily annex Belarus. So actually, Putin is left without a plan B for the 2024 election, and that’s not nothing.”
Grozev, who acknowledged that he will not be able to return to Europe while Putin remains in power, offered one forecast for the duration of his rule. “Before the next elections,” he said.
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Fukuyama, who joined a panel on the Aspen Security Forum stage shortly after Grozev’s appearance, said that he was “encouraged” by the Bellingcat expert’s analysis.
“Autocratic regimes look very powerful, right up until the moment that they collapse,” Fukuyama said. “And it’s very hard to know when that collapse is going to happen.”
