Episode Info
- Season17
Hosted by Christina Ruffini and Sir Richard Dearlove
Guest
Episode Summary
Former Director of Global Engagement in the Obama White House, Brett Bruen hosts our weekly special One More Decision with Sir Richard Dearlove for analysis on Wagner group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin's short-lived coup against Russia and exile to Belarus. Sir Richard shares his views on the aftermath, and what this means for Russian President Vladimir Putin's grip on power and the war in Ukraine.
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Transcript
INTRODUCTION
Mcfarlane: I'm Julia McFarlane, host of One Decision, the podcast that looks at the choices made that shape our world. Together with my cohost, the former chief of British intelligence, Sir Richard Dearlove, we unpack the key decisions, past, present, and future, that matter to us all. We drop new episodes every Thursday. But today, we're bringing you One More Decision, smart analysis of the latest breaking news around the world with Global Situation Room president Brett Bruen, who served as the White House director of global engagement during the Obama administration. Over to you, Brett.
ANALYSIS WITH SIR RICHARD DEARLOVE
Bruen: Thanks, Julia. Sitting here with Sir Richard a week on from what was just an extraordinary turn of events in Russia. Can I ask, what was your first reaction having spent so much time analyzing Russian politics, Russian military affairs? What were you looking at? What were you looking for?
Dearlove: Well, I immediately recalled to mind the quote of Winston Churchill, which is Russia. I think he said a riddle wrapped in an enigma. But what really took me aback was the shot of Prigozhin sitting in the military headquarters in Rostov-on-Don, having drinks or coffee or chatting with the two senior Russian commanders in that theater. And the fact that you have in front of you a clear mutiny and the Russian military are doing nothing about it. They're chatting in friendly terms with the guy who's leading the mutiny. And then he sets off down the main highway to Moscow, and Putin's immediate reaction is to panic. And the reason I say to panic is that if you watch closely the announcement that Putin made on national television, I mean it is really quite extraordinary. He seems to me terrified that there's no means of stopping this guy. Or if there is means of stopping it, it's gonna be very costly. And the fact that they start digging up the highway, we've seen the shots of the diggers cutting the main route to Moscow from the South. We see videos of a couple of helicopters being shot down. I mean, one is almost mystified as to how the Russians could get themselves into such an extreme situation, and it was an extreme situation. I mean, how you interpret this in the aftermath, I'm not quite sure, because it's difficult to understand what the tensions, the relationships are. But I think one thing I would say about this event, and we don't know what exactly happened before and what exactly happened afterwards. So the event itself we have recorded by the media, we know quite a lot about it. We do not know what happened in the sort of two or three weeks leading up to it. We don't know really what's happening now, or we don't know yet. But clearly there is a fundamental problem within the Kremlin and within the leadership. And the fact that the military themselves could allow this to escalate to the point where it did is extraordinary. I mean, thinking about it today, I just wondered whether Prigozhin could end up marching across the border in Ukraine and offering the services of Wagner to Ukraine. I mean, nothing seems beyond the bounds of possibility at the moment. I mean, it it's incredible.
Bruen: Well, and to that point, what is it that Lukashenko, the Belarusian president, would have, could have said to Prigozhin that would have stopped him in his tracks? I mean, that moment, I think all of us were left baffled by, because we know what happens to people that Putin considers traitors, and Prigozhin certainly knows that. So what could have kept him from proceeding towards Moscow?
Dearlove: The answer is I really don't know. I mean, like you, I am mystified, and I find it hard to provide an explanation. Did Lukashenko offer him an alternative job, come and work for me? Because I mean, it's clear that if there was a move on the Russian part to integrate Wagner into the Russian military, the financial damage to Prigozhin's investment in this military company or whatever, would have been to a large extent ruined or valueless. So did Lukashenko offer him an alternative deal? Or did Prigozhin suddenly get cold feet and realize that he had gone too far, and that although he had sympathizers in the Russian military, they might not stand up to be counted if it came to an actual military confrontation and fighting. Look, I've seen hours and hours of speculation on this from all sorts of people. I mean, the fact is we don't yet know. And I think I put the emphasis on yet because I've got a feeling that things like this eventually, you know, the mysteries are unraveled and you understand perhaps more of what's happened.
Bruen: We'll see. I wanna put a theory to you. I don't know if you would have read the book, The Mouse That Roared. But when I was a boy growing up, it was this famous tale of a small country that was trying to figure out how do we get more aid. And the way that they developed to get more aid from the United States was to declare war on them. And they proceeded—
Dearlove: It was a great movie. I think Peter Sellers was in it, wasn't he? Indeed.
Bruen: And so was this one of those cases where Prigozhin was trying perhaps to make a statement, and he, you know, was gonna take the Russian southern military headquarters and then was going to continue to proceed until he was, you know, running into enough resistance that he was gonna stop, and then he just didn't run into resistance. And he had to find a way short of taking over the entirety of the Russian state to get out of it.
Dearlove: Well, that's an interesting theory, and you might well be right. But I think what's unsettling for Putin and Russia in this case is clearly there were massive amount of sympathy for Prigozhin in the Russian military. How could he possibly get that far? And then Putin's put in a position where he has to reward the pilots that were killed when these six helicopters and the Ilyushin electronic control aircraft, the Ilyushin 22 or whatever it was, was shot down. Because it seems to me that the majority of the armed forces were not prepared to confront Prigozhin and to stop him leaving Rostov-on-Don. I mean, that is really pretty extraordinary. Maybe what it says to you is that Prigozhin's statements and criticisms about Ukraine not being a Nazi enclave and all that ridiculous argumentation that Putin produced to justify the invasion just wasn't true. So I think it reflects what many of us understand and know is that the Russian military are reluctant fighters and that their motivation is questionable. I think now the situation in Ukraine is somewhat different because the Russians are not on the offensive, they're on the defensive, and they've built a massive defensive line. They've learned a lot of tough lessons. It's easier, as it were, to hold the defensive line than go on the offensive. And of course, there's an issue now, self-preservation. You know, the Ukrainians hate them so much that, you know, they don't want to be slaughtered to the last man. So they have a strong incentive to hold the line because they're obliged to. My interpretation is that there are serious problems of motivation, which are hugely to the Russian disadvantage. You know, this is what we've sort of described as the human factor in this war, the bit that it's almost impossible to measure, I think.
Bruen: You and I spent our careers analyzing political weakness. You have to be looking at Putin after the events of last week and saying, this is a man who has been so politically weakened, particularly because he built up this tough image both of himself as well as the Russian state and military. If you had to write that assessment now for Downing Street, what would it say?
Dearlove: Well, I think it would say very simply that Putin was politically vulnerable because of a bad decision to invade Ukraine. But he's doubly vulnerable now because of these events which have, as it were, shown the weakness of his position in summoning the military to his personal defense. And on top of that, you've got a war in Ukraine, which is going badly. I mean, you already had that. But, you know, the downside for Putin's grip on power is devalued. It's weakening. And I would have said that it increases his vulnerability. Now, is he gonna remove Gerasimov, the chief of the general staff? Is he gonna dump Shoigu as minister of defense? I mean, for him to do that, and there are all sorts of rumors flying around at the moment, there are two potential adversaries who probably have a level of support and respect in the Russian armed forces. I mean, how much is he really in control? Not of Russia, but of making these decisions which are relevant to his position. I mean, okay, he has this Praetorian guard that looks after him, but if the Russian military were to turn against him, then he's finished. So I think there are all sorts of unanswered questions now which have more potency. I mean, I've always said he's in a fragile position anyway. I think that fragility is increased. I mean, let's say his position is even more brittle. You know, if you hit the bottle or the glass in the right place, it'll shatter. And I think he's, you know, on the outside, it looks complete, it looks strong. He walks down those steps, you know, he presents to the gathered forces of the security and the police, thank you for defending. I mean, what are we talking about? Why does he have to thank the security and the police for defending Moscow? I mean, you know, Russia is meant to be a polity, a stable polity. And the whole thing is quite incredible and unlike anything that we've seen in the twenty years of his administration.
Bruen: You do have to wonder, that video of the adoring Russians surrounding Putin. If now the Russian population perhaps who was persuaded by that propaganda before looks at it with a more skeptical eye. But, Sir Richard, you famously on this podcast predicted that Putin would be unceremoniously ushered out to an insane asylum or to some other resting place. I wanna check in with you on that, and what is your latest prediction? Where are we at year's end, and where is Putin?
Dearlove: Well, I think I would say I had expected maybe his demise to happen, or to start sooner than it started. I think maybe this is the beginning of the end, if you see what I mean, and how events evolve. I think the one thing is, I've learned this lesson so many times. Timing is impossible to predict, but there is no way now any rational person could say that Putin's regime is rock solid, that he's totally in control. I mean, he's clearly in a very vulnerable position. And if you watch that announcement late in the evening when he said, we have this dreadful security situation and the mutineers betraying Russia and all this. I mean, that's a true panic, because he clearly didn't know at that point that they were going to turn around, and he thought that, you know, he was being seriously threatened. So I'm not going to make a prediction on timing, but I think I would say with a reasonable degree of confidence that it's the beginning of the end of the Putin story. And if the Ukrainians managed to break the Russian defensive line and get behind Russian forces, which let's say are dug in in a manner which is reminiscent of the Maginot Line that the French built after the war in 1870 and then lead up to the First World War, then I think that that will be curtains for Putin. And of course, the other issue which is potent and on its way is this NATO summit and how the NATO summit is going to treat the issue of Ukrainian membership of NATO. We're approaching a very, very crucial stage, both geopolitically and militarily. And I mean, when I was in Ukraine, the Ukrainians said to us, and this was at a very senior level, national security and the Ministry of Defense and the intelligence community, look, one counteroffensive is not going to win this war. There will be a series of counterpunches. And I think that what one is observing at the moment is the first of a series of counterpunches. And I think the first one is a probe, is exploratory. And I think that the Ukrainians will be very keen to show something more serious militarily related to the start of the Vilnius NATO summit.
Bruen: So expect some real action over the next eight to ten days, two weeks. The beginning of the end is a good place to end. And so, Richard, I will share that the team passed along that at the moment, apparently as events were taking place both in Russia as well as in Ukraine, One Decision was in the top 10 podcast in both countries, so they clearly are listening. For all of us on the One Decision team, thank you for listening to One More Decision.
Dearlove: Okay. Well, I'm thrilled that we've got so many people following our commentary, but I think it is balanced, fair, sensible with a certain degree of insight.
Mcfarlane: That's it for this week's episode of One Decision. We drop new episodes every Thursday. Like and subscribe so you never miss an episode. Drop us a line. Tell us your thoughts. What decisions have impacted you and where you live? You can write to us. Our email is 1decision@1decisionpodcast.com. From me and the team, thank you for listening, and see you next time.
