The Show Must Go On – Vladimir Putin Version 2020 (The Russian Invasion of Ukraine #328a)

2022 was a terrible year for Vladimir Putin, 2023 is looking even worse. Putin has now faced down a mutiny. He did not defeat it with his usual weapons of choice such as open windows, poison, or radioactive substances. Instead, Putin feigned outrage and then proceeded to turn a cold shoulder toward the culprits. Belarus’ usually hapless dictator, Aleksandr Lukashenko, ended up bailing out Putin. At least that is the story for now. This narrative is liable to change. Unfortunately, change in the Russian leadership looks unlikely to occur. Nevertheless, lack of a decisive response from Putin confused Kremlinologists. This was out of character for a man who spent two decades cultivating a tough guy persona. Putin usually deals with those who oppose him by bankrupting, imprisoning, and sometimes murdering them. In this case, he did nothing of the sort.?

The Aftermath - Mutiny On The Don

The post-mutiny plot thickened this week when it was revealed that Putin met with Yevgeny Prigozhin and 35 other Wagner commanders, just five days after the latter and his disgruntled band of mutineers took over Russia’s Southern Military District in Rostov-On-Don without firing a shot. The Wagner troops were subsequently given VIP treatment by crowds of gawking locals watching in wide eyed amazement as events unfolded. The mutineers then proceeded to head north on a lightning strike that would put the Barbarossa blitzkrieg to shame. They only met light resistance on their journey towards Moscow. A small aerial force from the Russian military made a futile attempt to stop the mutineers. This only resulted in yet another embarrassing loss for Russian military forces in a war filled with them. They also encountered some tepidly formed highway barricades and torn up sections of road courtesy of a steam shovel sent to draw a line in the pavement. This less than serious effort to protect the regime was not going to stop battle hardened mercenaries determined to sort out the Russian military leadership. It was going to take something much more sublime, a phone call from Lukashenko.

Two hundred kilometers outside of Moscow, Lukashenko intervened by talking Prigozhin down from the ledge. This was not a bromance made in malevolence, more a marriage of convenience between two men whose livelihoods depended upon it. What deal was negotiated did not make everything in Putin world right again. Instead, it allowed for everything to go back to abnormal. The entire ordeal was surreal and beggared belief. If this had been a movie, no one would have believed the plotline. The actors were unable to competently play their parts. Their performance was lacking in sincerity. Prigozhin looked like a deadbeat dad out to avenge those who had stopped enabling his bad behavior. The child support payments were going to stop, but in this case Prigozhin was the child.

High Stakes Soap Opera – Days of Our Dictator

The times Putin appeared during the mutiny and in its immediate aftermath, he looked as though he had aged twenty years in twenty-four hours. Not that long ago he was posing shirtless in the Siberian wilderness with a fishing rod in his hand. Now he was reduced to being a bloated stuffed suit while angrily addressing the Russian nation. While watching Putin fulminate during his appearances, it was hard not to get the stinging suspicion that he was talking more to himself than the Russian people. Putin was doing a bad job of convincing himself that he still had what it takes to administer his preferred brand of vindicative justice. This was problematical because If Putin could not convince himself, then how could he convince his fellow Russians. Putin has become a stranger to his former self, and Russia has become a geopolitical basket case. One that the rest of the world watches in disbelief. It is like a high stakes soap opera, “Days of our Dictator” starring a regime on the verge of collapse.

This was not the end of Vladimir Putin, but it strangely seemed somehow worse for him. A show of weakness that portends similar shenanigans to keep up the appearance of control. The curtain has been pulled back and the wizard is shown to be a mere mortal rifling through his grab bag of machinations, searching for something that works. Rather than the new and improved Vladimir Putin ready to fight off the western world, we have the old and irritated Putin worrying himself sick over whether his vast security apparatus could hold off a former hot dog salesman turned revolutionary leader. No one could make this stuff up. Because this Russia, such bizarre behavior can be found in its history books. It is a way of political life that keeps repeating itself with entirely new casts of characters. The characters in this latest surreal scenario look like they are ready for a Russian version of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. All this would be utterly ridiculous if these same characters were not continuing to prosecute the largest conventional war in Europe since 1945. The leading man may be a mere shell of his former menacing self, but he is still in control of a massive nuclear arsenal. This, despite the fact he cannot stop 5,000 mercenaries going on a joyless ride for the ages.

Self-Deception – Shadowy Ways

What does all this malevolent absurdity have to do with Vladimir Putin? Well for starters, everything. The world is now experiencing Putin Version 2020. A much different Putin from earlier versions. Putin 2000 was the supposed cagey spymaster with his shadowy ways making Russia a great power again through the power of petrodollars. Then there was Putin 2010, an unkinder, harsher version of the supposed master strategist who unhinged the rules based international order by taking back Crimea and prosecuting a nasty pseudo-proxy war in eastern Ukraine. This version of Putin relished his malevolent role, working to undermine the western world. He outmaneuvered one western leader after another. He bought off Gerhard Schroder, shook down Angela Merkel, wrongfooted Barack Obama, humored Donald Trump, and fooled George W. Bush.

This supposedly made Putin a master strategist, but no one ever asked who was doing the deceiving. Was it Putin or did these leaders deceive themselves? Unspoken fears and sublime naivety helped Putin in his years long campaign to convince westerners to give him respect “or else.” Then Putin Version 2020 showed them what “or else” meant when he ordered the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. That decision has backfired to such an extent that it is doubtful if there will be a version beyond Putin 2020. That is the consequence and ultimately the question surrounding his war in Ukraine.