Vladimir Putin’s generals vulnerable despite surviving revolt

Submission Statement

Top leadership is under particular scrutiny during any war effort, and Russia's invasion of Ukraine is no different. Sergei Shoigu(Russia's defense minister) and Valery Gerasimov(commander of Russia's forces in Ukraine) have received particular scrutiny for their roles in the Russian military's failures in Ukraine. This scrutiny escalated into crisis when Denis Prigozhin marched towards Moscow with Wagner PMC, allegedly as a response to failures by Shoigu and the MOD in Ukraine. This article by FT examines the fallout and immediate implications for Shoigu and Gerasimov in the wake of this attempted insurrection. Quotes from Dara Massicot and an anonymous insider provide valuable prognostication about the immediate future of the two. I was particularly struck by the point Massicot made, that(at least in the short term) Putin dismissing either of the two would be seen as having terms dictated to him by Prigozhin. It may be the case that this coup attempt has actually made it more likely that Shoigu and Gerasimov will continue in their positions, regardless of their lack of performance.

Max Seddon is the Moscow bureau chief at FT. Dara Massicot is a senior policy researcher at RANDCorporation focusing on defense issues in Russia.

There was no sound on the brief video of Sergei Shoigu published on Monday morning or any indication of where Russia’s defence minister was as he pored over a battlefield map.

But the seemingly mundane footage was the first evidence that Shoigu was still in his job. Neither he nor Valery Gerasimov, commander of Russia’s invasion force, have been seen in public since Yevgeny Prigozhin launched an extraordinary coup attempt to oust them on Friday.

“Shoigu and Gerasimov are so bad in their jobs that it’s dangerous to Putin to leave them in place,” said Dara Massicot, a senior political scientist at the US-based Rand Corporation. “But loyalty and stability are number one for Putin. I just don’t see how he’s going to have these terms dictated to him like this.”

“Shoigu and Gerasimov are now obvious lame ducks and they will be removed, I think,” said Ruslan Pukhov, director of the Centre for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, a Moscow-based defence think-tank. He did not exclude the possibility that the two men’s departure could have been part of the brokered deal that led to Prigozhin standing his men down. The Kremlin has denied this.

The damage to Russia’s prestige has been such that even pro-war commentators on state television and social media admit that the coup called the entire war into question.

“This is a serious blow to the authority of the country and the authority of the president,” Karen Shakhnazarov, a Kremlin-linked film director, said on a popular online livestream show. “There was a feeling here that everything was unshakeable, and that turned out not to be the case.”

The reception Wagner’s men got in Rostov shows the popularity of Prigozhin’s tirades against the army leadership. On Saturday morning, when Prigozhin demanded a face-off with Shoigu and Gerasimov, Vladimir Alekseyev, deputy head of Russian military intelligence, laughed: “Take them!”

When Wagner left the southern city that was the launch pad for the coup, crowds waved, cheered and took selfies with Prigozhin — but booed the security forces who came to replace them.

Though Putin publicly backed Shoigu’s efforts, Prigozhin vehemently refused — conscious of the damage such an arrangement would do to his standing as a powerful warlord who answered only to Putin, according to a person who has known him since the 1990s.

“He understands fully well that if he turns into a zero, then Shoigu would have dealt with him at some point. So he went all out and decided to show Putin that he’s the only real one out there and he needs to be left alone with his money,” the person said. “He got it a bit wrong, and everything went to shit, as it usually does [in Russia].”

Putin’s biggest mistake, Rand’s Massicot said, was to give Shoigu his backing without finding an acceptable way for Prigozhin to save face.

“When he threw his support behind the defence ministry, it basically put a target on Prigozhin’s back,” she said. “A competent statesman would have reached out to offer Prigozhin an incentive, or something to buy him off. Clearly, that wasn’t done.”

With Prigozhin now in exile, Shoigu’s position could even be strengthened, according to the person who knows the warlord — as Putin will see no reason to fire a loyalist.

“Shoigu’s the only winner,” the person said. “He’ll be the defence minister forever.”