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Prigozhin presumed dead
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: Yevgeny Prigozhin, former head of Wagner Group and would-be putschist against Vladimir Putin's Kremlin and Russia, is no more. It was an unprecedented story, that coup attempt against Putin's regime. This was the man who, of course, had been built up and so loyal to Vladimir Putin with the most powerful paramilitary organization in the world, fighting a battle on the ground in Ukraine and fighting against the Minister of Defense and others, losing that battle and deciding to turn his forces against the Russian regime. First, in Rostov and capturing the seat of the Southern command, and then marching him probably on to Moscow, where at the final moment he backs down and agrees to a quote unquote deal with Putin. Putin, who went on national media and referred to Prigozhin as a traitor.
Let's be clear, the important information from all of this was not that there was a deal that was cut. The important information that NATO is paying very close attention to is that Putin didn't take Prigozhin out immediately. He contained the threat. He took his time and acted in a much more calculated way for Putin's own survival.
And given that we've never seen Putin tested like this, and given that for a dictator, it's important to have some air of unpredictability, that you might just launch those weapons, you might have your finger on the button, and that creates some deterrence. The fact is that when Putin was faced with a truly regime-ending threat, that what he did was very careful, very calculated, and ensured the best possible ability for Putin to keep on keeping on.
Now, as I said, back in June, Prigozhin was a dead man walking. Putin had good reason not to want to take him out at the point of his maximum leverage, not least because it would be very ugly in and around Moscow. It would lead to a lot of people getting killed that you wouldn't be able to contain or not show the Russian public. It quite probably would've showed that Putin himself had fled to St. Petersburg from Moscow, a message that certainly he didn't want to see go out.
And of course, Russia was also fighting what was at that point expected to be a very difficult and dangerous Ukrainian counteroffensive. And opening up a fight on two fronts and taking troops away from Ukraine also would've made that much harder for him. So now, Wagner has been contained. Their media company has been shut, many of their bank accounts were frozen, their contracts are being transferred, and the Ukrainian counteroffensive has mostly been shut down by the Russians.
And that of course makes it far, far safer and easier for Putin to go after the former Wagner chief. And so now Yevgeny Prigozhin and the military command structure of Wagner, that leadership dead in a plane crash. I'm fairly comfortable, even though there is no direct evidence at this point, we probably will never have any, saying that Putin gave that order personally. And hey, he actually had some time on his hands since he can't exactly travel to the BRICS Summit in South Africa.
And I'm also comfortable saying that there's no strong near-term threat to Putin. Let's remember that even when the Wagner forces were on their way to Moscow, that there were no defections from Russia's official military structure, no defections from oligarchs. And of course there was not major instability among the Russian people on the streets.
Yes, of course the Russian economy is doing a lot worse now than it was six months ago, a year ago. But Putin still runs that place, and as everyone in Russia can now clearly see, there remain very serious consequences for taking him on.
That's it for me, and I'll talk to y'all real soon.
The Georgian flag flies next to a destroyed building at a military base in Gori, Georgia, on Sept. 16, 2008.
Russia invaded Georgia too, and it never left
Georgia marks the 15th anniversary of the outbreak of the Russo-Georgian war this month. In 2008, a conflict between Russian-backed separatist forces in Georgia’s breakaway South Ossetia and Georgian troops sparked a Russian invasion of the South Caucasus country. To this day, 20% of Georgia remains occupied by pro-Russian forces.
The war was just one piece of the struggle in a long, complicated chain of events leading to the first full-scale, conventional war in Europe since the end of the Cold War.
GZERO Daily spoke with Tinatin Japaridze, a Eurasian political risk analyst at Eurasia Group and a native Georgian, to see what the world has learned 15 years on. She discussed whether the war in Ukraine could have been prevented if the West had responded more effectively in 2008 to Russia’s unprovoked aggression against its southern neighbor.
When the war broke out in 2008, Japaridze ran the UN Bureau for Eastern Europe in New York City and hosted her own show on UN Radio. Though covering conflicts wasn’t her usual role, this one was a particularly thorny issue for a Georgian-born journalist who had spent her formative years in the Russian capital.
“The sheer fact of my once-adopted country, where I had created a home for myself as a child in Moscow, invading my Motherland and threatening to roll tanks into my hometown, Tbilisi, was unbearable,” she says.
GZERO: Has the discourse surrounding the controversial question of “who started it” been largely resolved?
Tinatin Japaridze: Quite the contrary. The discourse still dominates every August War discussion in Georgia today. Ultimately, the answer to this complex question depends on how far back in history we decide to go. The war did not begin on August 1, 7, or even the 8th, as the Kremlin and Russian state-run media have long claimed in an effort to shift the blame to Georgia for firing the first shot. Nor was the so-called “five-day war” over on Aug. 12, 15, or 22.
One thing is certain: Referring to Aug. 7 or Aug. 8 as the start of the war, as if these were mere dates that don’t convey drastically different narratives, is extremely problematic. Marking the war’s anniversary on Aug. 7 places the blame officially on Moscow for starting its full-scale military aggression against Georgia. Recognizing Aug. 8 as the start date, on the other hand, plays into the Russian political narrative, which insists that its forces only attacked Georgia in response to the Georgian shelling of Tskhinvali in South Ossetia.
Endless spats over these dates and “who shot first” leave no room for an actual discussion about what happened and, more importantly, how to resolve the frozen conflict and reclaim the breakaway territories that remain occupied by Russia.
We also have to remember that the August War has deep roots that predate Russian tanks rolling into Georgia in 2008. Deterioration of relations between Moscow and Tbilisi can be traced back to the 2003 Rose Revolution that served as a major irritant for the Kremlin, propelling pro-Western Mikheil Saakashvili to power the following year. Russia interpreted Georgia’s clear pivot to the West as a red flag that threatened to eventually position Tbilisi as an eastern anchor in a chain of NATO allies stretching from Warsaw to Ankara.
GZERO: When Russia launched its full-scale invasion against another neighbor 14 years later, Western media headlines were quick to draw parallels between 2008 and 2022. Do you agree with such comparisons?
Japaridze: There are undeniably some similarities in terms of the Kremlin’s “signature” plastered all over its incursions into sovereign lands that Moscow still considers to be in its own backyard, so to speak. But overstating parallels between Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine today leads to a deeper misunderstanding of both conflicts.
Most notably, Russian President Vladimir Putin does not view Ukraine as a truly sovereign country that can and should exist independently of Russia. We all recall his revisionist history lecture on the night of the full-scale invasion when the Russian leader reminded his compatriots that Ukraine as a country was “created by Russia,” and he hailed another Vladimir — Lenin — as its chief architect.
It became apparent within hours of Feb. 24, 2022, that unlike in 2008, where seizing Georgian nationhood was not necessarily Moscow’s objective, Ukraine was a different matter altogether for Putin. There are also economic, international, and domestic factors, which were not as pronounced in the Georgian case.
GZERO: The West has come together to support Ukraine in a remarkable way. Do you feel that there wasn’t enough done for Georgia back in 2008?
Japaridze: Few Western pundits, analysts, or even politicians would disagree that the international reaction was remarkably muted, with Russian authorities suffering few negative consequences in the aftermath of the 2008 war. Europe led calls for an immediate ceasefire that, in hindsight, favored Russian interests over those of a small and strategically less significant Georgia.
As for the White House, just a year later, it attempted to “reset” its relations with the same leadership in the Kremlin that had invaded a US ally. Is there a degree of deep-seated disappointment in Georgia to this day, given the limited Western response? Absolutely.
GZERO: What was the most challenging aspect of covering the war from the UN headquarters in the hot summer of 2008?
Japaridze: In the early hours, when information was scarcely available and the media coverage was still dominated by Russian disinformation, choosing sides was personally challenging, even though politically, my allegiance undeniably rested with Georgia. The intricacies of the Georgian conflict intertwined with my professional responsibilities – what was purely political on paper became deeply personal.
I met several times with UN permanent representatives to Georgia and Russia — Irakli Alasania and the late Vitaly Churkin, respectively — whom I interviewed and also conversed with off the record. But the most difficult and emotionally charged experience was attending UN Security Council meetings and hearing first-hand about atrocities committed by my adopted country in my native Georgia.
GZERO: What message would you, first and foremost, as a Georgian, like to share with readers?
Japaridze: Fifteen years ago, Moscow invaded the small South Caucasus country of Georgia, and it never left. To this day, 20% of the country remains under Russian occupation. In other words, the invasion persists. So while we all continue to do everything we possibly can — and then some — for Ukraine to ensure that Russia is stopped before it’s too late, my hope is that the world won’t entirely turn a blind eye on Moscow’s creeping occupation in Georgia.
It may no longer dominate the headlines, and Georgia has understandably been pulled out of the daily political agenda, but let us remember that history has shown us repeatedly that the worst atrocities occur when no one’s watching.
A Soyuz-2.1b rocket booster with a Fregat upper stage and the lunar landing spacecraft Luna-25 blasts off from a launchpad at the Vostochny Cosmodrome in the far eastern Amur region, Russia, on Aug. 11, 2023.
Fly me to the moon – or maybe not
Russia’s first lunar mission in 47 years made contact of the wrong kind this weekend when its Luna-25 spaceship crash-landed on the surface of the moon. According to the Russian space program Roscosmos, the craft, also called the Luna-Glob-Lander, “switched to an off-design orbit” before it met its demise.
Luna-25’s failure presents a serious setback for the Russian space program. The robotic craft was supposed to journey to the moon’s underexplored south pole and study the atmosphere for one year. It was also supposed to pave the way for future lunar exploration, including a possible joint mission with China, and restore Roscosmos' tattered reputation: It last landed a craft on the moon at the height of the Cold War.
What went wrong this time? Moon landings are notoriously tricky, but apparently, the Russians were also “having a lot of problems with quality control, corruption, with funding,” according to Victoria Samson, Washington director for Secure World Foundation, which advocates for the peaceful exploration of outer space.
To compound Russia’s chagrin, Roscosmos’ credibility will take a further hit if the Indian Space Research Organisation makes a successful landing of its Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft on Wednesday. India launched a moon-bound rocket and rover back in July with the hope of becoming only the fourth country to do so after the US, China, and Russia. If it successfully lands on the south pole, the 1.4-billion-strong country will go a long way toward establishing itself as a major player in today’s space race.
Russian President Vladimir Putin stands with Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu during the Naval Parade marking Navy Day.
War and peace on Putin’s mind
Three Ukrainian drone strikes lit up the night sky in Moscow this weekend, damaging office towers and causing a brief closure of the city’s Vnukovo International Airport. The Russian defense ministry labeled it an “attempted terrorist attack” and reported that one Ukrainian UAV was destroyed and that two more were “suppressed” by electronic warfare. No injuries were reported.
Vladimir Putin, meanwhile, suggested he might be open to peace talks … but (and it’s a big one) only if Ukraine halts its offensive. Volodymyr Zelensky promised the exact opposite, vowing instead to increasingly take the war to Russia, which he called "an inevitable, natural, and absolutely fair process.”
But after being accused for a year of siding with Russia – and against a backdrop of Russia and the West vying for support from developing countries over Ukraine – Saudi Arabia is set to hold peace talks next weekend in Jeddah. The Gulf kingdom has invited 30 countries, including Egypt, Mexico, Chile, Zambia, the UK, South Africa, and Poland. White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan is reportedly set to attend the talks, which exclude Russia.
The goal? To begin forging a framework and international support for ending the war – perhaps leading to a peace summit later this year.
Putin, however, has shown no signs of letting up. In recent days, he has halted the Black Sea grain deal, launched missiles at grain storage facilities in Ukraine, maneuvered to enlarge his army, and announced the purchase of 30 new ships.
We’ll be watching to see who gathers in Jeddah on Aug. 5.
Putin's New Show: Everything is Going According to Plan!
Russia's president travels time to explain why various historic disasters weren't actually disasters at all. Explosion of the Hindenburg? Crucifixion of Jesus? Fyre Festival? Everything was going according to plan!
Watch more PUPPET REGIME!
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Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu chairs a meeting with the leadership of the Armed Forces in Moscow, on July 3, 2023.
Russia: The “Scumbag” speaks!
Russia’s Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu on Monday made his first public comments about the mutiny that mercenary warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin — who had repeatedly called him a “scumbag” — led against him 10 days ago.
In a terse statement that he read from a piece of paper during a broader meeting of military personnel, Shoigu said the mutiny had failed because rank-and-file soldiers had “courageously and selflessly carried out the tasks assigned to them.”
Shoigu’s appearance and statement seem to make clear that Putin isn’t planning on swapping out his Defense Ministry leadership anytime soon. But it’s worth noting — again, as Prigozhin himself did — that Putin's main issue isn’t so much disloyalty as it is incompetence: His war has been poorly planned and clumsily executed from the start, something that Prigozhin made a point of highlighting in ways that are still thorny for the Kremlin.
In other news, the Levada Center on Monday released a poll on Russians’ views of the mutiny. The big winners were the Armed Forces, whose image improved among 30% of Russians, and Putin, who looked better to nearly 20%. Shoigu, meanwhile, took a hit in the eyes of nearly 30% of respondents, second only to Prigozhin, who lost the affection of 36%.
Lastly, there is still no word on the whereabouts of Prigozhin-pal Sergei Surovikin, a top Russian military official known as “General Armageddon.” There were reports late last week that he had been detained, just hours after The New York Times cited US intel officials to the effect that Surovikin was believed to have had prior knowledge of Prigozhin’s mutiny attempt.
Undated photo posted by Jack Teixeira\'s mother on Veterans Day Nov 11, 2021 on her Facebook page.
What We're Watching: Pentagon leaker suspect arrested, Gershkovich swap chatter, Uruguay’s free trade ambitions
And the suspected leaker is ...
On Thursday afternoon, the FBI arrested a suspect in the most damaging US intel leak in a decade, identifying him as Jack Teixeira, a 21-year-old member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard. Teixeira was reportedly the leader of an online gaming chat group, where he had been allegedly sharing classified files for three years. If convicted of violating the US Espionage Act, he could spend the rest of his life behind bars. Teixeira will appear in a Boston court on Friday.
We know that the chat group was made up of mostly male twentysomethings that loved guns, racist online memes, and, of course, video games. We don’t know what motivated the leaks, what other classified material the leaker had, or whether any of the docs were divulged to a foreign intelligence agency.
Arresting a suspect, though, is just the beginning of damage control for the Pentagon and the Biden administration. Although the content of the leaks surprised few within the broader intel community, many might not have realized the extent to which the US spies on its allies.
Uncle Sam obviously would’ve preferred to have intercepted the message this scandal sends to America’s enemies: US intel is not 100% secure.
Russia is maybe considering swap for Evan Gershkovich
A top Russian diplomat suggested Thursday that Moscow could explore a prisoner swap with the US in order to release American journalist Evan Gershkovich, whom Russian authorities jailed earlier this month on espionage charges.
But first, said Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, the trial against Gershkovich will have to play out in full. That could take as long as a year.
What might Russia want in exchange? Hard to say. Last year, the Kremlin swapped WNBA star Brittney Griner, convicted of a drug offense while traveling in Russia, for notorious arms dealer Viktor Bout. At the time, the Kremlin also reportedly sought the release of a Russian assassin from a German prison, but that swap broke down when the Kremlin refused to also release Paul Whelan, an American currently serving an espionage sentence in Russia.
A year from now, the world, and the Ukraine war, might look very different. But expect the Kremlin to throw the book at Gershkovich to maximize their leverage ahead of any talks about his release.
Meanwhile, elsewhere in Russia’s prison system, opposition leader Alexei Navalny — currently in solitary confinement — has suffered a fresh health crisis that his spokeswoman says is another attempt to poison him.
For context, see our recent interview with Daniel Roher, director of the Oscar-winning documentary Navalny.
Uruguay’s FTA dream
Uruguay's Foreign Minister Francisco Bustillo will soon meet with Chinese officials to take steps toward establishing a Free Trade Agreement between the two countries. Uruguay has wanted an FTA for three decades, and the timing might finally be right as China seeks to increase its influence in South America.
Getting an FTA with China has been a priority for Uruguay’s President Luis Lacalle Pou's administration. The meeting will come on the heels of trade talks between Brazil and China, countries that saw their two-way trade hit a record $171.5 billion in 2022. Uruguay wants in on the action.
China has deepened its trade relationships in Latin America throughout the 21st century, beating out the US as the region's largest trading partner. Beijing benefits politically from these partnerships, gaining votes at the UN and support for Chinese appointees to multinational institutions, as well as the ability to implement technology standards into regional infrastructure.
But not all of Uruguay's neighbors are comfortable with China's swelling influence in the region, or with Uruguay flying solo. Uruguay is facing resistance from other Mercosur countries that favor negotiating regional trade deals as a bloc. Paraguay, which still recognizes Taipei in lieu of the government in Beijing, is leading the pushback – a conflict that could test one of the bloc’s few rules: a restriction on making preferential agreements with third countries.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of Russia's Wagner mercenary force, speaks in Paraskoviivka, Ukraine, in this still image from an undated video released on March 3.
What We’re Watching: Prigozhin’s precarious position, Israeli reservists vs. Bibi, Iran seeks schoolgirl poisoning culprits
The Russian warlord shaking his fist toward Moscow
Yevgeny Prigozhin is angry, and he wants the world to know about it. In a recent video that’s now making international news, the owner of the Wagner Group, a Russian mercenary force fighting in Ukraine, complains his men are not receiving ammunition he personally requested from Russian military chief Valery Gerasimov, and that the reason might be “betrayal.” He speculates his men are being “set up” as scapegoats in case Russia loses the war. Whatever the truth, Russian public infighting over the war looks to be intensifying. Russian forces have been “closing in” on Bakhmut for months, and Ukrainian troops still appear to be holding most of their ground. It may be a sign that Russia’s current advance won't accomplish much. According to the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, “The Russian offensive to capture Bakhmut will likely culminate whether Russian forces capture the city or not, and the Russian military will likely struggle to maintain any subsequent offensive operations for some months.” Ukraine, meanwhile, continues to gear up for an expected counteroffensive in the coming weeks as Russian forces are depleted and new weapons arrive in Ukrainian hands from Western allies.
Israel’s ‘Mr. Security’ antagonizes the military
There’s growing fear of a trickle-down effect after a group of army reservists opposed to the Netanyahu government’s proposed judicial overhaul said they would boycott training exercises later this week. On Sunday, 37 out of 40 pilots from the Israeli Air Force’s 69th Squadron – responsible for operating the advanced F-15I fighter jets (used in the past to conduct surgical hits on strategic targets inside Syria and Iran) – said that they won’t report for training due to the government's attempt to dilute the power of Israel’s independent judiciary. Crucially, they will report for duty if their service is needed, the group said, though analysts point out that training is crucial to the upkeep of this unit. While some military members have voiced opposition to the government’s judicial play, this move represents the most high-profile defection to date. What’s more, there have been reports that mid-tier pilots currently on active duty might also refuse to serve, which would have significant implications for Israel’s security posture. But PM Benjamin Netanyahu, likely facing pressure from his far-right coalition partners, doesn’t seem keen to lower the temperature, saying on Monday that “conscientious objectors threaten the foundation of our democracy.” Indeed, Netanyahu has long positioned himself as “Mr. Security,” but that’s going to be increasingly hard to do as he picks a fight with swaths of the military.
Who’s behind chemical attacks on Iranian schoolgirls?
The Islamic Republic’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on Monday finally addressed the spate of chemical attacks that has hospitalized more than 1,000 Iranian schoolgirls since late November. After reports that schools in 21 of Iran’s 30 provinces have been hit, he said the perpetrators must face the “harshest punishment,” while the country's top judicial officer said those responsible would face the death penalty. But who’s behind the attacks? Several government ministers have suggested that radical Islamists opposed to girls’ education are responsible for the poisonings that have sent girls to hospital with symptoms of nausea and vomiting, while others have suggested that the regime could be targeting the girls as a reprisal for the cohort’s participation in recent anti-government protests. Still, the regime has been broadly criticized for failing to address the issue sooner. Meanwhile, parents of poisoned girls protesting in Tehran were beaten by security officials, according to footage shared on social media.