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2023 game changers that weren’t
What we thought would stir up the political landscape in 2023… but didn’t.
1. Ron DeSantis
Earlier this year, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was widely viewed as perhaps the only Republican who could give former President Donald Trump a run for his money in the race for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination. He was seen as a younger, more polished version of Trump in many ways. But DeSantis’ heavy focus on fueling culture wars – his anti-woke crusade – fell flat with voters in 2023. His underwhelming and often awkward performances on the debate stage haven’t helped. Indeed, as the year comes to a close, there are few signs that DeSantis has any real shot of seizing the nomination over Trump – his approval has even fallen in Florida.
2. Yevgeny Prigozhin
Though he was 2023’s most colorful character, the exploits of this soldier of fortune, entrepreneur, media star, violent sociopath, and former hot dog vendor amounted to sound and fury signifying not much. He briefly led a mutiny that challenged the Kremlin’s power as bemused Russians and fascinated foreigners watched. Realizing too late he had too few friends in Moscow, he retreated, then later went down in a phony plane crash. Now, nothing is left but the noise.
3. The Earthquake in Turkey
In February, a massive earthquake rocked southeastern Turkey, killing 60,000 people, displacing 1.5 million, and exposing rampant corruption in the building safety bureaucracy. At the time, many thought President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s sluggish response would kill the strongman’s chances of reelection at a moment when the opposition was gaining momentum. Not so. Erdogan’s blend of Islamist populism and pugnacious foreign policy carried him comfortably back to the White Palace after all.
4. Nigeria’s youth voters
Since the country’s return to democracy in 1999, Nigeria’s politics have been dominated by two parties, the APC and PDP, and Nigerians were gearing up for another uninspiring choice in the 2023 elections — until dark horse candidate Peter Obi made his move. He broke with the PDP and threw in with the little-known Labour Party, launching an energetic campaign on social media that promised change. He captured the imagination of Nigeria’s booming youth cohort, and with the backing of ethnic Yoruba elders as well, Obi looked promising enough to make the powers that be sweat. But he came up short in an election he maintains was rigged against him, even after a court ruling upheld the results.
- How Turkey's earthquake may shape the future of its democracy ›
- DeSantis in a storm ›
- Nigeria elects political “Godfather" as president ›
- Prigozhin presumed dead ›
- GZERO End-of-the-Year lists: Top 5 political animals of 2023 ›
- 10 images that captured 2023 - GZERO Media ›
- GZERO 2023 political music playlist - GZERO Media ›
- 2024's top 10 geopolitical game changers - GZERO Media ›
Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Putin breaks his silence on Prigo
Almost 24 hours after the plane presumed to be carrying Wagner warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin exploded midair outside Moscow – presumably killing him and Wagner’s top military commander Dmitry Utkin – Vladimir Putin has broken his silence. On Thursday, the Russian leader sent his condolences to the families of the 10 people killed in Wednesday’s massive explosion.
(For more on Prigozhin’s failed June mutiny, which brought him on a collision course with his boss, see our explainer here.)
Though Putin needs to keep things ambiguous to avoid igniting the wrath of the thousands of disgruntled Wagner troops who remain loyal to Prigozhin, he did make his displeasure with the former mercenary chief known: Prigozhin was a “person with a complicated fate, and he made serious mistakes in life,” Putin said, adding that he “also sought to achieve the necessary results – both for himself and … for the common cause.”
Complicated fate? That’s something the Kremlin and the US intelligence community can agree on. On Thursday, US officials confirmed that the explosion was likely the result of an assassination attempt, though they said the explosion didn’t come from surface-to-air missiles, as some have claimed, but from a bomb placed on board or another mechanism.
Putin is known for killing his enemies, but taking down a loyalist and one-time protege? That would be a first.
Russian mercenary Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin in military gear.
Wagner's Prigozhin presumed dead
A private aircraft reportedly carrying Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Wagner Group warlord who launched a failed mutiny against the Kremlin back in June, has crashed outside Moscow, killing all 10 aboard, according to Russian state media.
Russia’s Federal Air Transport Agency says it is investigating the cause of the crash in the Tver region north of Moscow, which happened 30 minutes after the jet, headed for St. Petersburg, took off. Moscow says that Prigozhin’s name was included on the passenger list.
Remarkably, some Wagner troops have claimed that the plane was shot down by … Russian defense forces, presumably on Putin’s orders. This has not been confirmed.
For more on the ins and outs of the wild Wagner mutiny see our coverage here and here.
It’s not a huge surprise that the man who posed the biggest threat to Putin’s reign in decades might have turned up dead almost two months to the day since the botched mutiny. At the time, GZERO President Ian Bremmer said it was just a matter of time before Prigozhin would meet his end.
Indeed, when CIA chief Bill Burns was asked recently why Prigozhin was still alive – a nod to the many people who’ve mysteriously fallen out of windows during Putin’s tenure – he implied that the Wagner chief should certainly still be sleeping with one eye open: “Putin is the ultimate apostle of payback,” he said.
Much is still unknown about the circumstances of the crash, but it comes just days after the Wagner chief released a video, the first since June, claiming to be in Africa furthering Russia’s interest throughout the continent. It also coincided with news that Gen. Sergei Surovikin had reportedly been relieved of his command of Russia's aerospace forces.
Looking ahead. Now that the mercenary group is leaderless, what does it mean for Wagner’s vast operations across Africa? What will happen to the reported 10,000 Wagner troops exiled in Belarus? And if it’s confirmed that the Russian military did in fact shoot down the plane, how will the thousands of enraged, battle-hardened Wagner fighters, many of whom listed prison as their last known address, respond?
Wagner fighters deployed in Rostov-on-Don, Russia.
Have Wagner fighters gone rogue inside Russia?
Since late June, when Russia’s Vladimir Putin cut a deal with Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin to end his mutinous march on Moscow, it has remained unclear who the remaining thousands of Wagner fighters will take orders from. That deal included a promise of safe passage for Prigozhin and some of his troops to Belarus, but that country’s president, Alexander Lukashenko, has never claimed to control their operations there.
Six weeks later, it’s still unclear.
The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, says that both a “Russian insider source” and a “Wagner-affiliated source” have warned this deal may have “collapsed,” triggering a return of some Wagner fighters to Russia. (ISW acknowledged Thursday it can’t yet confirm any large-scale troop movement.) Part of the problem: ISW sources say Putin and Lukashenko never agreed who should pay for makeshift Wagner facilities in Belarus.
Meanwhile, there are stories that a former Russian prison inmate, freed as part of a deal he made to fight for Wagner in Ukraine, had been charged with double murder in Russia. The BBC reported on Thursday that it has confirmed that suspects in about 20 serious offences, including rape and murder, were men recruited by Wagner to serve in Ukraine. More than 60% of Wagner’s original force of about 78,000 fighters in Ukraine are believed to have been pulled from Russian prisons.
If a disorderly disintegration of some Wagner units is taking place, they appear to pose little direct threat to Putin or his generals. But the desertion of large numbers of heavily armed, battle-hardened former convicts is not good news for either Belarus or Russia.
Wagner Group guards are seen around CAR President Faustin-Archange Touadera during the referendum campaign in Bangui.
Wagner to guard CAR referendum
On Sunday, the Central African Republic holds a referendum on its new constitution, which (surprise!) removes presidential term limits. With violence all but assured, the vote will be protected by the army ... and a bunch of foreign mercenaries from a group that's become a household name.
Fresh off its failed mutiny in Russia, the notorious Wagner Group will act as President Faustin-Archange Touaderá's praetorian guard to ensure the plebiscite goes off without a hitch in CAR, a resource-rich yet dirt-poor and chronically unstable nation. Wagner fighters have been deployed in CAR since 2018, and they helped Touaderá get reelected two years ago by scaring off rebels (he showed his gratitude by building a statue honoring "Russian" soldiers in Bangui, the capital).
Still, with its boss Yevgeny Prigozhin now out of favor with Vladimir Putin, Wagner's future in CAR is uncertain. Although the president needs the mercs to keep the rebels in check and Bangui safe, the Kremlin — which has de facto wrested control of Wagner away from Prigozhin — might decide to send its forces to Ukraine or wherever else Moscow needs boots on the ground.
Either way, whatever happens in CAR will be closely monitored in Burkina Faso and Mali, two African countries run by military juntas where Wagner has contracts — and Putin has interests.Founder of Wagner private mercenary group Yevgeny Prigozhin.
Prigozhin watch: it gets weirder
Just five days after Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin led his mutinous march towards Moscow, Vladimir Putin met with him and 35 of his lieutenants at a secret Kremlin meeting.
That’s according to Putin’s own spokesman, Dmitri Peskov, who said on Monday that Prigozhin had used the occasion to explain his grievances about the Defense Ministry while also swearing eternal loyalty to the Russian Cza-, er, President.
If true, the entire Prigozhin story just got even stranger. Recall that on the day of the mutiny, Putin called Prigozhin-- whose men shot down several Russian military aircraft on their otherwise easy march towards Moscow — a traitor. In Putin’s Russia that charge normally ends in arrest or worse, not a business lunch with dozens of your friends hosted by the Kremlin.
Meanwhile there is still no clarity about where Prigozhin and his men actually are — Belarus? Russia? More to the point, while Putin and his media outlets have for good reason continued to demonize Prigozhin to the general public, the warlord himself seems to still be a free man. Or — to be more precise — he is still a man about whom there has been no announcement of arrest or liquidation.
What to make of all this? On the one hand, it hardly becomes a strongman to meet with a traitor who has led a mutiny. But on the other hand, allowing Peskov to mention the meeting at all — even two weeks later — is a signal that Putin now feels firmly enough in charge again to allow it to be known that this meeting took place. Whether his perception is correct is another matter entirely. In all, we’d wager that even stranger things will come to light in the next few days.
Wagner mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin leaves the headquarters of the Southern Military District amid the group's pullout from Rostov, Russia.
Where the heck is Yevgeny Prigozhin?
Thirteen days and counting – that’s how long it’s been since anyone has seen Yevgeny Prigozhin in public. After he led an armed mutiny up 500 miles of highway toward Moscow two weeks ago, the Kremlin announced that the Wagner Group leader would be permitted to go into exile in Belarus. But on Thursday, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko announced that Prigozhin had flown to Russia. “Yevgeny Prigozhin is in St. Petersburg … Maybe he went to Moscow or some other place. But he is not in Belarus,” he said.
In recent months, Prigozhin has used profane video and audio tirades, published in friendly media channels, to castigate Russia’s military brass. He has since gone quiet, and he hasn’t been photographed in Belarus or made clear his future plans. The Russian government wants us to know it isn’t concerned. “We do not have the desire nor the capability” to track Prigozhin’s movement, a Kremlin spokesman said Thursday.
Imagine you’re a Russian citizen trying to make sense of what has happened since Prigozhin launched his “march for justice” toward Moscow last month. Without naming names, President Putin told you during a televised speech that the mutiny was a “colossal threat” to the country and that its organizers would be “brought to justice.”
Perhaps the Kremlin believes that allowing Mutineer #1 to fly in and out of Russia makes the president look strong and confident. But it’s possible many Russians are as confused as many non-Russians about why an average person can be arrested for passing out anti-war leaflets while Prigozhin isn’t in prison facing charges of treason and mutiny.
Wagner PMC founder Yevgeny Prigozhin leaves a cemetery before the funeral of a Russian military blogger who was killed in a bomb attack in a St Petersburg cafe, in Moscow, Russia.
How popular is Yevgeny Prigozhin in Russia?
A new poll by the independent Levada Center in Moscow shows support for the warlord plummeted in the days after his failed putsch last weekend.
On June 23, before Yevgeny Prigozhin marched on Moscow, 58% of Russians “approved” of his activities, due in no small part to the publicity that the Kremlin had lavished on him for more than a year: A warrior for the fatherland. A hard-boiled patriot. A man of the people.
But it took just five days of pummeling by Vladimir Putin and the state propaganda machine to clip that number in half – to 28%. He is now a traitor. A thief. An ingrate.
Why work so hard to besmirch Prigozhin? Can’t Putin just … eliminate him? Putin may indeed have grave plans for his old chef. But he has to tread carefully.
Prigozhin’s message – that incompetent, corrupt generals in Moscow have bungled the war, abused the valor of their men, and weakened Russia – is powerful and hard to deny. Members of the security services and army may find it particularly appealing. Consider that even after his mutiny, more than a quarter of Russians still support him.
That makes it risky for Putin to deal with him too harshly too quickly. Aside from the matter of how to roll up thousands of heavily armed Wagnerites (an issue my colleague Willis addressed here), Putin will also want to avoid turning the darkly charismatic Prigozhin into a “martyr,” as the Institute for the Study of War put it.
In other words, it will be necessary to assassinate Prigozhin’s character before doing away with the man himself. The bigger problem for Putin, however, is that removing any one particular “traitor” won’t address the deeper issues of incompetence and rot that have undermined his war and, potentially, his regime.
If you read Russian and want to see the Levada poll, it’s here. If you’re wondering whether polling in Russia is useful at all, see our interview with Levada research director Lev Gudkov here.