The Power of a Failed Revolt
When we write history, it tends to be tidy and led by great men. In real time, it’s messy but still astonishing. Last weekend, Yevgeny Prigozhin, who leads a private army called the Wagner Group, attempted what many have called a coup against Russian President Vladimir Putin. Technically, it failed. He landed in the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don, pledged to march to Moscow, and then turned around. Nothing about this series of events suggests expert planning or high competence. Prigozhin is a former prisoner and a former hotdog salesman. Staff writer Tom Nichols puts him in a league with “gangsters” and “clowns.”
But sometimes gangsters and clowns are the ones who shake up the established order. Prigozhin’s march lasted barely 48 hours, yet it seems to have changed the conversation about Russia. Putin appears shaken and, as staff writer Anne Applebaum put it, “panicky.” His response to such a direct threat has been surprisingly tentative. The mutiny may have technically failed, but it left some revolutionary thoughts in people’s minds. Putin is not, in fact, invulnerable. Which means Russians might have a choice.
In this episode, Atlantic staff writers Anne Applebaum and Tom Nichols explain this week’s wild turn of events in Russia and the door those events opened.
“We’ve lived with Putin for 23 years. We’ve kind of internalized his narrative that he’s untouchable and he can stay forever, and that he reigned supreme,” Nichols says about this remarkable moment. “That’s gone. And so I think it’s a pretty natural thing to wonder: If he’s not that powerful and if he doesn’t have that kind of support, how long can he remain in power?”
Listen to the conversation here:
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The following is a transcript of the episode:
Hanna Rosin: I’m Hanna Rosin. This is Radio Atlantic. Over the weekend, something wild happened in Russia. A man named Yevgeny Prigozhin seemed to start a rebellion. His private army, the Wagner Group, fights alongside Russian troops in Ukraine. But this weekend they turned their guns against Russia itself. They took over a major southern city called Rostov-on-Don and then pledged to march on Moscow, making it hundreds of miles before turning around.
Was this a mutiny? Was it a failed coup? People are debating Prigozhin’s motives and whether he thought he had internal support. Zooming out, though, what it means is that one man—a guy who was in prison, then became a hotdog salesman, and then rose up to become a loyal protégé of President Vladimir Putin—turned on Putin, humiliated him, and somehow survived. We’ve been told that Prigozhin is now in Belarus. Anyway, the news is moving quickly and there’s been lots of speculation. Two people I staff writers Anne Applebaum and Tom Nichols.
