Russia and the rebellion on day 486 of the invasion of Ukraine

By: Ricardo Israel - 02/07/2023

In general terms, a rebellion is an act of resistance to authority or disobedience, when there is a hierarchical organization in the State. It is also a criminal offense, usually a violent act that uses weapons to overthrow the legitimate authority is recognized or lied about the motive. When it is illegitimate, the doctrine recognizes that there is a right against tyranny.

In some countries, the law makes it equivalent to sedition, and for its part, riot, uprising or riot is used for a localized act, such as a ship or a military unit.

Was it rebellion or insurrection? For many they may seem similar, but the big difference is that the second does not aspire to be sustained over time nor does it have a defined program, unlike the first, which is organized and goes beyond simple management.

One way of looking at the facts was that they stemmed from Putin's decision to end the ambiguity by placing Wagner under the control of his adversaries in the Ministry of Defense and the Army. The other is that of the long history of Russia, where according to the majority Western perspective Russia is unpredictable, well reflected in Churchill's well-known definition, where it appears as “a riddle wrapped in a mystery within an enigma”. By the way, the Russian view of its history and tradition is completely different.

However, what stands out in the mediate or immediate vision and in the different readings and perspectives is only one thing, that this situation shows the weakness of the post-Soviet state, which authoritarianism at the top had managed to hide under Putin. The lesson that the rebellion of the Wagner group leaves behind is that of many systems with this characteristic, that everything seems under control until the moment it ceases to be.

The question is how is this weakness of the State harmonized with the atavistic fear of chaos and disorder of this same history? In this regard, probably the best explanation is that what happened is a direct consequence of not having achieved the military objective that was sought with the invasion of Ukraine. And if something reflects the same Russian history, it is that it does not forgive that type of failure, they were tsars, uniformed, party authorities or civilians.

As a consequence, although he remains in control, Putin almost immediately lost authority and respect. Even more important, for supporters and detractors, inside and outside Russia, that aura that everything was going well for him and that the invasion could ultimately work for him was cracked.

However, everything recommends prudence, for the simple and at the same time important reason that, in none of the participants in these events, anything other than the ideology of mother Russia and its manifest destiny is noticed or appreciated, therefore, in Ultimately, it was a dispute between toughs and even tougher, “bear fight under the rug”, drawing once again on Churchill's vision of Russia.

What did we witness in these 24 hours? Was it an equivalent to the putsch of August 91 that precipitated the end of the USSR? In this regard, caution is recommended, since the Soviet Union was an artificial creation, the form that the empire acquired under communism, with territorial demands similar to the tsarist past and to the present. However, although in both cases the challenge was short-lived, they come together in that the two situations showed the weakness of the Kremlin, then as now. And unlike the USSR, Russia has a millennium of history.

It is impossible and even silly to say that nothing has happened, that the exile was the end of Prigozhin's attempt and that the mercenaries who wish to do so will be incorporated into the army, since those 24 hours showed everyone who wanted to see, the unexpected weakness of a political leadership that could not stop the march towards Moscow of a private group made up of more or less 25,000 men, as well as the lack of military reserves that wanted or could confront them on Russian territory.

It is true that armed confrontation was avoided (Putin mentioned “civil war” in a later speech), but of all scenarios, the worst for world stability, and certainly for the Russians, is that the disintegration of the USSR is repeated in today's Russia, which has already faced the Chechen challenge in the Caucasus.

In the events of June 24 there is a foreign interest that is legitimate, since there is a nuclear arsenal and there is still insufficient information, if these insurgents who took over the headquarters of the military command in Rostov that controls part of the invasion, ever had or they pretended closeness with these weapons.

In 1991, the military itself protected these weapons from the coup plotters, further evidence of the responsibility with which both camps acted in the cold war in relation to nuclear weapons. Perhaps it was due to the fact that Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) prevailed where it was the last resort, since it was assumed that a confrontation of this type could end life itself on earth.

However, today Russia has rescued from that time the idea of the use of nuclear weapons not as in Hiroshima or Nagasaki, but in a tactical way as one more element of the military struggle. This is a different scenario, and the world is just adapting to this sharp change in doctrine that ensured only its use as a last resort.

In Ukraine there was a manifest lack of interest from the West, since in fact there was a military conflict since 2014 in the Donbas, that is, some of the same places of the current confrontation, which was also used as an argument not to incorporate it into NATO then, a situation that continues to this day, as well as the application to the European Union, currently on the waiting list. In fact, in the Netherlands, those who shot down a plane there, where all the passengers died, were sentenced in a trial.

The irony of what happened on June 24 is that, after the failure of the rapid capture of Kiev, that is, from the first weeks of the invasion, Putin's bet was for a war of attrition, which now it appears weakening Moscow before Zelenski, in days when the expected counteroffensive appeared without being able to penetrate the Russian defenses.

Politically, the weakness shown by the Kremlin alone demolishes the argument that the incorporation of Ukrainian territory was needed to end the invasion, since the way out offered by Belarus was accepted without qualms. His intelligence failed to anticipate what would happen as there was also an inability of the military to repress the insurgents, so changes will come in both, and not only as part of the negotiation with Prigozhin.

But, what happened should not lead to the deception that there will be a change in the Kremlin, since nothing indicates a break in the Russian position on the invasion and its territorial demands, and if there is a transition, the question is transition to that?

In this regard, I do not believe that the atomic threat doctrine that has emerged after the invasion was complicated will be changed. Today, that is the great Russian power, above all, in the current conditions.

It is also part of the attraction for its current alliance with China, where its interest increases along with Russia's weakness, since its decisions today have a marked geopolitical overtone, with interests very different from those of the USA and with the insistence of being treated as the power that it is.

One must not make the mistake of acting as if China did not exist or only had an economic role, nor the naiveté of thinking that for commercial reasons it is going to "pressure" or move away from Russia. Since the alliance is not between equals, it is better to see it as the equivalent of the current relationship between the USA and the European Union, where it is very noticeable that one is more equal than the other.

In any case, given the timing of a counter-offensive that seems to be making little headway, it is a good time for Ukraine as it eases the pressures it may have faced for the July 12-14 NATO Summit in Lithuania. Will Western politics change anything? Will the attitude towards Ukraine's membership of the European Union and NATO change or will it continue only as a promise?

There are also doubts within Russia whether Prigozhin was an isolated act or whether there was support and encouragement behind it. In this regard, it does not seem that there was interference from abroad, and since it is a phenomenon only among Russians, what comes now? War between clans? In this regard, there are various types, all armed in Russia. Repression by the Federal Security Service, successor to the KGB, of every potential adversary? What about the other private armies? Not only the Chechens, since the Wagner group was only the best known and most numerous, since at least four others have fought in this war, and, in fact, the Redut group composed of around 7,000 men was among the first to invade the Ukraine, fighting even near Kiev. Will they all be officially inducted into the army, weakening the war effort itself?

Furthermore, even the Gasprom company has its own armed structure to protect its wells and other investments. Another example of the weakness that not only the army but the Russian state as a whole is showing, which is not good news for the Russians or for the stability of that part of the world, nor for the predictability of international relations.

Is there an opportunity for negotiation?

Personally, I don't think so, since nothing indicates yet that Russia wants to withdraw from Ukraine, but will there be at least a transfer of power from Putin's hands?

There I think so, although not immediately, and I find it more likely that it is within the very system that Putin has designed, that is, the governors, who having been elected recently, and most of whom are close, have already taken on importance. for the war effort, for example, in the draft.

What must be clear is that, as in all its history, a liberal alternative, discredited by the rest, is not seen in the crisis and poverty of the 90s. Furthermore, the street now showed us a novelty, forms spontaneous support for the insurgents and their leader, as had not been seen since the beginning of the war. Nothing further achieved by democratic protests or sanctions.

Absolute power cracked. That is the big change for now, but still within the system created by Putin. There must be prudence more than enthusiasm. Russia may continue to surprise us.

And as a conclusion, the million dollar question: how will what happened affect the war and the invasion?

It is a question asked with humility because of the way in which many forecasts have been wrong, including by the way and, first of all, some of mine.

Perhaps it is part of that "fog" of all war that von Clausewitz spoke of. It has not cleared up, but the photo of the minute shows that Moscow appears calm when nothing has yet returned to normal in the Kremlin.

@israelzipper

Lawyer, Ph.D. in Political Science, former presidential candidate (Chile, 2013)

«The opinions published herein are the sole responsibility of its author».