103. Putin's Secret Army: The Coup That Almost Brought Down Russia (Ep 6)

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20:19Gordon:Terms apply.

20:25Gordon:Well, welcome back. It is Friday the 23rd of June, 2023. I'm sure it was a lovely day. and Wagner forces are moving from Ukraine back into Russia. Which is not what you're supposed to do.

20:40David:It's the wrong direction. It's the wrong direction. They're supposed to be going to fight in Ukraine. But this is the moment where Prigozhin realizes he is being locked out. His overall plan of, I'm going to force my way into the inner circle. I'm going to kind of get Putin to kind of get rid of Shoigu. He's overplayed his hand. but what he's going to do is he's going to double down. He's not going to back down. As always, which is the Pogoshian style. Now, he's going to claim his camp was attacked by the Russians, by missiles, and some of his fighters killed. Now, it looks like that was a kind of staged attack or faked, a kind of pretext.

21:19David:One of the interesting things, I think, is that the FSB, Russia's security service, don't seem to spot what's going on, which I think partly suggests that this is quite an impulsive move. There wasn't a lot of advance warning here. No, there's not a lot of advance warning.

21:35Gordon:Which also would be classic Prigozian.

21:37David:Yeah. Impulsive. Yeah. And I think one of the problems, because the FSB, as the KGB in its time, spent a lot of time actually spying on its own military precisely to prevent coups and mutinies. But in this case, they don't seem to have had the kind of intelligence within Wagner because it's a mercenary group outside of their control.

21:55Gordon:Which is even more astounding because one of the larger and most important units or departments inside the FSB is the set of military counterintelligence, right? I mean, to keep tabs on the people with weapons. Yeah. Right.

22:08David:And they failed. And they failed here. And Prigozhin issues a video which is kind of off the rails now. He says the whole justification for the special military operation, the war in Ukraine, is a lie. he says the idea that the people in the donbass the east of ukraine were suffering genocide at the hands of ukraine and that russia had to intervene to protect them from an imminent threat wasn't true you know what was the war for he says it was needed so that shoigu could receive a hero star the oligarchic clan that rules russia needed the war now this is wild stuff isn't it Because he's undermining the whole basis for this war.

22:50Gordon:And I guess he's got 25 ,000 men that in theory could march to Moscow to make a point, let's say.

22:58David:It's thought they've got about 25 ,000 men then. I mean, that's probably a bit of an exaggeration. So he says the evil carried out by the country's military leadership must be stopped. And so he says he's going to restore justice in the military. And after that, justice for all of Russia. It's a march for justice, David.

23:22Gordon:Well, I mean, who wouldn't join a march for justice on Moscow led by a bunch of ex-convicts? Yeah, but he's portraying, I love the phrase. Cannibals marching back to Moscow to claim justice.

23:33David:He's trying to make it sound like Martin Luther King or something, you know, like we're on a civil rights march. When in fact, it's, yeah, as you said, it's prisoners and cannibals and Dmitry Iukin with his SS tattoos.

23:44Gordon:It feels like he is improvising. Yeah. And that there's not a plan. Yeah. This is why I don't think we should think about it as a coup. Yeah, I think that's right. I think it's part of a negotiation.

24:01David:Yeah, it's a mutiny. It's a mutiny is a better word. But mutiny as a negotiating tactic.

24:07Gordon:Yes, yes. We will depart the front and march to Moscow. to demonstrate that you need us. Yeah. And in the hopes of getting to a better outcome with the Ministry of Defense, right? And that seems like the sort of thing that the FSB's military counterintelligence units who would presumably be watching Wagner and have sources inside Wagner, you would think, wouldn't really pick up on until it's happening. Because there's no high-level plan. Yeah, there is no. Yeah, I think that's right. Or maybe not even the concepts of a plan.

24:45David:Although I do love this fact. His mother, Violetta, who we encounter at the start of the story, will later say that when we saw each other before the march, I told him, Xenia, that's his nickname, only people on the internet will support you. No one will go with you. People aren't like that now. No one will come out to the square. Her son replied, no, they will support me. Now, I don't know whether she's misremembering that, but I love it. I love it. Only people on the internet.

25:11Gordon:Just people on the internet. But it's like the Twitter trolls will support me.

25:15David:I'll get loads of likes, but no one's going to come out in March.

25:19Gordon:And then this leads us to Saturday, the 24th of June.

25:23David:And that is, I can remember this vividly because I was in the BBC that day in the newsroom covering this. And it is one of the more memorable days. It was one of those days where you thought history could turn. You know, this could be the day. And as the day starts and as it unfolds, where you think this could be the day that Putin is removed from power, in which there's a coup in Russia, in which a civil war starts in Russia. As the day was unfolding, you genuinely didn't know what was going to happen or where it was going to end. Because Wagner forces have moved into Russia. They take the military headquarters for the southern command of Russia, which is in Rostov-on-Don.

26:04David:Best guess is there's about 8 ,000 troops from Wagner who have taken this. Now, the public, it's so interesting. They don't know what to make of it in the city. Because ordinary life is going on. Wagner troops are now occupying the city. And people are asking for selfies with Purgosian when they see that. They're like, it's Purgosian. You know, he's the kind of nationalist hero. He appears in Rostov in a number of videos. And it's a weird scene because the kind of police are there as well. And also some of the regular Russian military. It would be confusing. It's just confusing. No one seems to know what to do.

26:34David:And one of the soldiers asks, you know, Prigorshin, what are you doing here? And he says, saving Russia, which is his line. But it's interesting. There's no resistance, which also leads to some wonder, is there some collusion? I think this is the key fact. Actually, the regular Russian troops don't want to fight Wagner. Why would you even assume that he's attempting a mutiny at this point? But even if he is, do you want to fight him? He might be the winning side. And I think what we'll see during this day is lots of people basically stand on the sidelines. You know, I mean, in a way, his mother is right when she says no one will go with you.

27:12David:But it's also true. They're not with Putin. They're not kind of protesting or fighting him. So they are basically, everyone is standing on the sidelines waiting to see how this plays out. So the Kremlin, you know, on Saturday is trying to work out how to respond. One of the most interesting things, video by General Suravikin, who we've mentioned a number of times. General Armageddon. Now, he is an honorary member of Wagner. The Kremlin get him to do a video in which he says, I urge you to stop. Now, when you look at that video, remember watching it on the day, it looks like a hostage video. You know, he is in a kind of blank room reading to camera going,

27:50Gordon:I urge you to stop. And that might just be the natural, sunny, charming personality of General Armageddon.

27:58David:But I think US intelligence is later going to think he had advance warning. And I think there is a very logical possibility, which is that Pregosian is thinking, I'm going to end up Ministry of Defence. Suravikin and I will make the head of the armed forces. They're in cahoots. But the Kremlin have got to Suravikin first and said, you're going to make this video. You know, there's no way that's going to happen. Now, crucially, at 10 o 'clock in the morning, on the Saturday morning, Putin comes out and he denounces those stabbing Russia in the back at a time of war. This is exactly the kind of blow that was dealt to Russia in 1917 when the country was fighting the First World War, he says, warning about civil war.

28:34David:And he says there's going to be a counterterrorism regime in Moscow. And the organizers of this mutiny have betrayed their own people and their country. And this is a disaster for Pregosian. Because if the point is negotiation, pressure on Putin to kind of get him to get rid of Shoigu, it's failed.

28:51Gordon:And let me guess, Gordon, for once in his life, Yevgeny Perkozhin just turns around and backs down, right? He backs down. He goes, yeah, okay, I'll go back.

28:58David:No, instead - Just keep on going. He keeps on going because he sends a convoy, a military convoy of Wagner, up the M4 motorway from Rostov to Moscow, to the capital. He must be hoping that on the way, the army, the National Guard maybe will join him. I mean, Moscow seems paralyzed, I think, at this point, because one of the problems is they don't actually have defenses set up to stop a mercenary force. Where's Putin? I mean, he's done this address, but everyone thinks Putin's maybe fled just in case they make it. I mean, there's all these kind of mysterious questions about, you know, are there private jets flying out of Moscow, which belong to oligarchs and others?

29:38David:Is Putin's presidential jet heading for St. Petersburg? No one knows.

29:41Gordon:Putin, throughout the conflict, has sort of moved, floated around regularly down at the Black Seas in Moscow. He has a place in St. Petersburg, too. So it could just be part of doing business.

29:56David:He often has these identical-looking offices. So he can be filmed in an office in Sochi or wherever. You won't know where he is. You'll think he's in the Kremlin, so he can move around. His Zoom background is the same. His Zoom background is the same. So the convoy is making its way up. There's some half-hearted roadblocks. Now actual resistance gets to 200 miles from Moscow. It's only a couple of hours away now. We should say Progoshin is not in the convoy, right? I originally thought he was. He stays in Rostov. He stays in Rostov. So he's basically, guys, you go on ahead. You go on ahead. The Russian Air Force flies over, and the Wagner team are actually going to shoot down.

30:33David:They've got kind of mobile air defense, at least one, maybe three helicopters and a command aircraft during this. I mean, that's a big deal because you're now Wagner mercenaries are killing Russian military. This is the moment where you go, civil war.

30:48Gordon:My interpretation of, I guess, fence sitting that we're seeing on the part of a lot of Russian military security services, elites are kind of just everyone's looking and watching and waiting to see how it goes down. You can kind of look at it through multiple lenses. I mean, one is, does this actually show some of the strength of the system that Putin has built, that no one actually joins Prigozhin? Yeah. And they just kind of sit back? I'm not sure if I'd see, I don't think I'd see that if I was Putin. I'd be like. Or does it reflect maybe some of, I mean, because obviously in an autocratic system like this, there's not a lot of incentive to act, to go do things, right?

31:29Gordon:I mean, Prigozhin is a little different from a lot of these other kind of Russian elites in that way because he's very entrepreneurial. He goes out and does stuff. You kind of get the sense that they're hedging for sure and that it feels like a double-edged sword to me because it's helpful to Putin here in that nobody quite knows what's going on. They're not joining. They're not joining. And yet it's stripped out all of the incentive to go out and actually just take it down. You know, everyone wants to see how it plays out. So he gets tremendously far into the country.

32:04David:And I mean, you know, the world's holding its breath because this is a nuclear-armed country which could descend into civil war. You know, in the White House Situation Room, they're watching it, but they can't do anything. I remember people asking, you know, Putin is bad, but Prokosian and his nationalist friends, you know, could this actually be worse for Ukraine, for Europe and the world? But the key thing, I guess, is Prokosian doesn't want to fight. There's some talk that maybe he thinks he's going to take the Ministry of Defense in Moscow and remove Shoigu and take over. But he's actually on the way.

32:31David:He's still trying to negotiate. This is a negotiating strategy rather than a coup. So he's calling Putin or he's trying to call Putin and Putin's not taking his calls. And then crucially, the person who gets involved is Lukashenko, the president of Belarus. And he's got good contacts with both. So he becomes the kind of intermediary. And Lukashenko tells Progoshin that Putin will not meet with him, nor surrender Gerasimov and Shoigu. And Progoshin supposedly says, but we want justice. They want to strangle us. We will march on Moscow, says Progoshin. Halfway there, you'll be squashed like a bed bug, Lukashenko replies.

33:09David:So finally, Progoshin is being told and being warned, don't keep escalating. Because if you do, you're going to get squashed. Do you think Progoshin was on drugs? I think that is entirely plausible.

33:21Gordon:I mean it could be this seems like a drug addled fever dream that he's in the middle of and that he's going to afterward he's going to sober up and going to regret some of these things

33:33David:so finally I mean I guess Lukashenko will talk Prigozhin down after a few of these calls and barter agreement I think Prigozhin knows he actually at this point can't win so early evening Prigozhin halts the convoy effectively gives up Prigozhin pictured in a black SUV in Rostov, where, as you said, he's been all the time, driven away. And very suddenly, very suddenly, it's over. I just remember it so vividly that for hours you thought Putin's going to fall. There's going to be a kind of civil war violence in Moscow. And then suddenly it's literally over. It's amazing. And the deal struck.

34:08Gordon:And the deal is essentially that Prigozhin will agree to go with any of his men who want to go to Belarus. Yeah. where they'll be able to set up camp. I guess on the face of it, it's not a bad deal for a mutineer.

34:25David:No, I mean, I think it's amazingly a good deal, isn't it? No criminal charges at this point. Immunity. I mean, you've led a mutiny, and you're getting immunity for all those involved. You know, I think it's a sign of Putin's weakness at that moment, because he just doesn't, you know, Putin's been a bit paralyzed in the day, and I think Putin doesn't want to push things too far and actually have a rebellion. So on the 26th, so just a few days after, Putin gives a public address to explain it. He's angry and he'll say that many men were led astray. He reaffirms they'll now have to sign contracts with the military.

34:59David:Still doesn't name Pagoshin, though. He still can't quite destroy him. Because after all, I think, you know, he's very popular. He's got a lot of fighters. Got a popular in the nationalist community. His men are doing kind of important work in Africa. So I think, you know, he can't do anything, or at least not yet. I guess it is maybe one of the bigger unanswerable questions around this whole affair is how close they were to some kind of civil conflict.

35:26Gordon:Because if you look at Pergosian's behavior through the lens of someone who's maybe drug addled, but certainly making some very impulsive decisions. From Putin's standpoint, it could make sense to just kind of like, okay, this guy kind of burned out all the steam burned out of this thing. he came to his senses before we had to smash him. Take Lukashenko's point, you know, don't make us actually have to smash you because we will and we can. You know, he doesn't get what he wants, right? He still has to sign a contract with the MOD and Shoigu and Grasimov are still there. You need to give him a deal good enough for him to take so that you can deal with him later.

36:05Gordon:Yeah, exactly.

36:06David:I think that's the key is that I think the Kremlin knows it's got to deal with him, but it's going to deal with him slowly, you know, and carefully. because I think Prigozhin has to hand back to the MOD some of his tanks and artillery, some of his men transfer. I think he knows it's over for him in Ukraine, but he's maybe still hoping he can do the whole Wagner thing around the world because he's still got this base in Belarus. But the problem for the Kremlin is that they're going to know that he's got this base. And I think they're going to start to discredit him. This is a fascinating poll. So as you get to June 2023, 58 % of Russians fully or partially approve of Prigozhin.

36:40David:So that's in the run-up to the coup. Afterwards, it's going to drop to 29%. But if you think 58 % is really high approval rating, but 29 % after the coup. So after he's led a mutiny against Putin, 29 % of Russians still, I mean, polling in Russia, let's be honest. It's a bit wobbly.

37:00Gordon:Also, 58 % doesn't seem high for a Russian leader. It seems like the polls would show much higher.

37:05David:But I just think, you know, 29 % fully or partially approve after the coup. So I think Putin is kind of calculating, I'm going to put the squeeze on him, but I'm not going to kind of just go after him in one move. So they're kind of starting to dismantle his business empire. They're dismantling the media empire. They're forcing things to be sold. They're closing down some of the propaganda outlets. So he's only left with his telegram channel. There's going to be a campaign to discredit him. The Russian security services raided his house on the day of the mutiny, unsurprisingly, in St. Petersburg.

37:42David:And then photos are going to come out which reveal the luxury he lived in. His private swimming pool, the helipad, the sauna, the gym, the medical office. You know, the man of the people image is kind of being diminished. Yeah, the idea he's the man of the people versus the corrupt elite. I mean, this is where we get the pictures of him with all the wigs because those get released. but there's also the great the sasha baron cohen dictator wigs which he had the wigs one of the

38:07Gordon:one of the pictures yeah is of the wigs in a in a big kind of cabinet right like his storage his

38:12David:disguise cabinet yeah which we've all got in our houses i mean you must have one david and they find stashes of gold bars a stuffed alligator and a framed photo which is purported to show the severed heads of exiled enemies of Purgosian. And also, I mean, in his own house, a giant sledgehammer with the inscription for use in important negotiations. You know, it's like, he's almost like a kind of parody of himself. I was going to say,

38:41Gordon:he's gotten high on his own supply here. He's gotten high on his own supply. And it also makes me think how different the Russian approach to diplomacy is because he's got the sledgehammer. And in US embassies, In some US embassies, they'll sell in the store a special bourbon that's called liquid diplomacy. I think the Russians would also approve of that kind of diplomacy.

39:06David:But the pregosia is sledgehammers for negotiations.

39:11Gordon:If any American diplomats are listening, I would heartily approve a sledgehammer as a negotiation tool.

39:17David:I think the squeeze is on. He's flying around now from Belarus to St. Petersburg. It looks like he's just desperate to keep some of his business going around. But he's starting to lose the contracts, including catering, you know, for the Ministry of Defense and schools. They didn't keep him on the catering contract. They didn't keep him on the catering contract. Africa is his kind of last hope, I think. So the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, gone around Africa to reassure leaders that, you know, they'll still get the support from Moscow even after the Wagner thing. But Purgosian is still going out to Africa himself to try and get new deals.

39:50David:So he's still kind of pitching, it looks like, that he can send thousands of fighters. Mid-August, looks like he was in Mali, Central African Republic. There's one video of him in the desert with a rifle. But even there now, it looks like he's being kind of shut out of contracts. The squeeze is on.

40:10Gordon:And I guess he's lost that luster of the, you know, even if Moscow isn't the one directing him to go get these contracts. a lot of his African clients would have signed up because they presume that he's got the end with the Kremlin. And now they know.

40:27David:They know he's not. He sees his mother that summer, Violetta. When I last saw him, he looked doomed, she will say.

40:34Gordon:I think Mama Purgosian might be filtering a lot of these quotes back through what's happened since.

40:40David:Yeah, I agree. I'm not sure. I think he probably thought he could keep going or he hoped he could.

40:45Gordon:Certainly, yeah.

40:45David:But then August 23rd, 2023, 5.46 p.m., executive jet, tail number RA 02795, lifts off from Moscow's airport, heading for St. Petersburg. Now, there had been an inexplicable delay for some repair work, strangely, David, just before the plane takes off, according to one of the crew cabin stewardess, Christina Raspopova, in a text message to her family. and there also reports that two potential buyers for the jet had been on board an hour just before it departed suspicious perhaps some might say in hindsight but the plane soon reaches its cruising altitude of about 30 000 feet just after six o 'clock suddenly goes into a steep dive eyewitnesses on the ground say they hear two explosions see the plane falling disintegrates in the air losing one wing and part of its tail no time even for a mayday call crashes nearby a village flames smoke rising from the field now this is interesting all 10 people die including the pilot the cold pilot the stewardess obviously you know entirely innocent but the passengers of course include prigogion himself and dimitri utkin our ss loving friends and the head of security and logistics for Wagner, along with two of Wagner soldiers and two of Pregosian bodyguards.

42:09David:It wipes out, basically, the leadership.

42:12Gordon:It feels like a mistake to have the entire leadership of Wagner essentially flying together. Yeah.

42:19David:Two months to the day since the mutiny. You know, there's some speculation, you know, that a missile took it out. Putin will suggest the crash was caused by Pregosian and other commanders drinking and using drugs, back to your point, while handling stroke juggling grenades on board.

42:37Gordon:Which this gets back to the, you know, nothing is true and everything is possible. Yeah, he can say that. Yeah, it is just you just make up something else that's totally ludicrous and then feed that into the state media. And there you go.

42:50David:But almost everyone thinks it's a bomb. I mean, there are these theories that it was faked. There seem to be a theme in our podcast. People think someone's not dead who is dead. We've heard from everyone from Edward Lee. He's gone to Tupac. Yeah, he's gone. with Tupac. Yeah, he's actually alive and living in Cuba. No, but he's dead. He's dead. He's dead.

43:07Gordon:And I guess it must have been elements of the, or contractors working for the FSB. FSB, GRU? Or GRU?

43:16David:GRU. I'd guess GRU sabotage squads. I mean, but on the orders of Putin. I think no doubt about that. That would have to be a Putin thing. I mean, you know, they gave it a bit of time, a little bit of two-month delay, as we said, to kind of bit of time, bit of space, not make it too obvious deal with africa make sure you've got mercenary groups ready to take over wind things up i think it's also putin is you know trying to work out what are the risks of taking him out how's it going to play out and i think the problem as well is progocyan has still not learned his lesson he's not gone quietly he's still trying to kind of do stuff he's still got a bit of popularity and i think the risk is you know he could have become the kind of rallying cry again for a kind of nationalist opposition.

43:56David:So I think leaving him around is risky for Putin.

44:00Gordon:It's got a risk. You have to send a message to others who might in the future consider a similar path, right? Exactly. That it will be dealt with very directly. There has to be a price. And it's also possible that the delay of a couple months was that, yeah, there's probably some attempt inside the Kremlin or the GRU or the FSB to get a sense of how much support he has inside the military where support or potential aid may have come during the mutiny. But do you also wait a couple of months to get all of these people together in one place? Yeah. I think there's a moment of opportunity. There's a moment of opportunity.

44:40Gordon:They're all on the plane. It also says something, I think, about the nature of Putin's payback. And Bill Burns, former CIA director, actual friend of the pod. Unlike many of the people we reference as friends of the pod, he's a great friend of the show and was with us for a few episodes for our declassified club members. He's referred to Putin as a great apostle of payback. And it's so true. And I think the theatrics are important as well because Pregosian has been traveling inside Russia in this couple month period, he could have been arrested. Yeah. He could have been detained. Other members of his entourage could have been arrested or detained.

45:24Gordon:There wasn't really any need, was there, to kill innocent flight attendants and civilians and to do it in this, you know - It's performance. Big way, right? He could have been just, he could have been quietly murdered. Yeah. You know, at one of his properties. He could have been killed in Belarus quite easily, but they chose a very public demonstration of how enemies of Putin and the state are dealt with.

45:55David:I think that's absolutely right. Putin on his death praises him as a talented person who made mistakes, as if launching a coup or a mutiny was like a mistake, like a poor post on social media, like they made the odd mistake. I agree with Putin's assessment, though, don't you? A talented person who made mistakes. I mean, this is, you know, and Peter will say, I knew Purgoshan for a long time since the early 90s. He was a man with a difficult fate. He made serious mistakes in his lives and he achieved the results he needed both for himself. And when I asked him about it for the common cause, as in these last months, he was a talented person, a talented businessman.

46:29David:He worked not only in our country, but also abroad in Africa. It's interesting because they also don't want him to become a martyr because makeshift memorials are going to start to go up, you know, in cities on his death you know candles things saying hero of russia the fear is he's going to be a cult so wagner is going to get dismantled wagner operations in africa are going to be taken over by a new africa corps slightly unfortunate name under the military control of the gru shoigu survives only for the moment actually shoigu gets moved on from being defense minister but for the moment he's safe and progotion himself buried inst petersburg a few days after the crash the city where he grew up where he started not far from the restaurants where he first met putin but it's a private funeral not much ceremony they you know they they try and keep the location quiet they even seem to kind of do some distractions so people you know think it's somewhere else and some of the journalists go off to a different site and closed casket it's a closed casket yeah and and and very private in order to prevent that kind of cult of pregosian from emerging.

47:33David:And after that, Prigozhin's name is never mentioned in public again.

47:38Gordon:What do we make of this psychotic caterer turned mercenary warlord? I mean, this whole adventure, I think, does show some of the cracks in the Russian system under the strain of the war, doesn't it? I mean, it reminds me there's a little bit of a mirror of what the Syrians had to do in the Civil War where you essentially had to turn to militias to make up for real weaknesses in your military. These kind of conflicts show the weaknesses of societies, don't they? And Russia needed to turn to mercenaries. And this is a mercenary who sort of wanted to become something much bigger than himself and exposed really through a system that had kind of been in balance before the war into a tremendous amount of imbalance, at least for a period of time.

48:28Gordon:Yeah, I think that's absolutely right.

48:29David:It's a wild story about one individual and ambition and ruthlessness and violence. But it does tell you something about Putin's Russia. I think it does tell you that the system is creaking. And Putin projects himself as this person who brought stability after the kind of chaos of the 90s. And yet, you know, here he is with kind of mutiny and coups because partly he failed to manage that court and because people got too big for their boots like Pugoshin. So there's a world of kind of rivalries and power and tussles for power beneath the surface of what looks like a kind of autocratic system, which were revealed by Putin under that pressure of war and mobilization.

49:11David:Yeah, Purgoshin got out of hand and he had to be reined in. But I think he did reveal something. Purgoshin is a kind of, he's no everyman. He's not the ordinary man of the street. He has some man of the people vibes. But he does have some man of the people vibes. You know, he's got the kind of prison background. But I think what he showed was that there was a part of the Russian population who were angry and who feel like they've been screwed over by the elite. Who feel angry, for instance, at the way the war's been run. Who are angry over corruption by the elite. You know, he kind of hit on something which is real and visceral.

49:47David:I mean, it's a Russian nationalism, but also a kind of anti-elite feeling. It's a hatred of the corruption. Now, of course, he was part of the corrupt elite, maybe not the inner circle, but he was part of that too. But I think he became the voice of something quite interesting, which also exposed how kind of remote and fragile the Putin court is, because it's full of kind of rich, corrupt people who are kind of distanced from the population. And I think that is showing something about Russia, which is important and potentially dangerous and unstable, I think.

50:26Gordon:Finding the right words to describe the system is a challenge because it certainly looks stable. This mutiny aside, I mean, when you look at the Putin system on the outside, there are a lot of things. We could put together a whole list of factors that make it seem stable. Putin controls the security services. There's sort of multiple kind of Praetorian units that he can use for his own personal security. He seems to have control over the military, right? I mean, there's all these different kind of elements in an autocracy that you kind of go down a list and it's like a check, check, check, right?

51:08Gordon:I think what this episode shows with Pergosian is that there's an inherent brittleness in these autocratic systems where they're stable until they're not. And then a little bit of imbalance in your elites creates a lot of pressure on the system because the whole thing has been set up in this kind of hub and spoke model. Putin is right at the middle and everyone else kind of doesn't know what the others are up to. and Putin is balancing all of them against each other. In a normal system, you might have expected the military to act, to just stop this right away. And instead they hedged. And instead they hedged.

51:49Gordon:Yeah. And so if you're Putin, I mean, that's kind of the way the system is supposed to work. But when that brittleness is exposed, there's this moment where an enterprising, you know, psychopath like Yevgeny Purgosyan can potentially do incredible damage.

52:07David:Yeah, it shows Putin is a kind of detached figure in a sense, not the master strategist, not all powerful, but weak, requiring kind of ruthlessness sometimes to just be able to hold this together against the threats that lie out there. So, yeah, I do think it really does tell you something about the nature of Putin. I think you're absolutely right. These states look stable until suddenly they're not. Putin will know that a lot of people hedged, you know, on that day, on that Saturday, that the military and everyone didn't come to his aid. He knows that. And I think he is fundamentally a weaker figure than we give him credit for.

52:47David:And I think it also shows be careful about mercery groups and, you know, giving mercery groups lots of power. The Russian state has privatized all these things and created alternative power centers. And if you create a private power center in the form of mercenary warlords, be careful because it might come back to bite you.

53:03Gordon:See, I agree that Putin would understand that there was a lot of hedging. I also think that that's kind of what the system is designed to do. And that you don't necessarily want your sort of mid-level military officers, your colonels and whatnot, to be acting without orders, direct orders from the top. I mean, it can cut both ways. But I kind of think to some degree, I mean, this is definitely the biggest, the most significant elite challenge to Putin since he took power. And he survived it. The system survived it. He managed through it. Pregosian's dead. And Wagner and his empire has sort of been cut up and parceled out.

53:47Gordon:And Pregosian is never mentioned again.

53:49David:And Pregosian is never mentioned again. I think that's maybe a good place to leave it. Just a reminder, we've got a special series on the Declassified Club, which you can join at therestisclassified.com, where you can hear us look at the kind of emergence of Putin as a KGB officer. And a lot of the kind of roots of this story in terms of St. Petersburg and Leningrad under the Soviet Union and then transitioning into Russia. That series is there for club members. That's right.

54:18Gordon:We've done the perpetrator in Prigozhin, now the victim. Putin the victim no one's ever called him that

54:25David:that's right but thanks for listening we hope you enjoyed it and we'll see you next time we'll see you next time