Mr. Putin today is not who he was last week. Mr. Prigozhin showed Russians a fleeting glimpse of an alternative future, and by doing so, gave more Russians reason to doubt their leadership. Is Mr. Putin really the all-powerful, czar-like figure they thought he was? That is the question most ordinary Russians will now, finally, begin to ask themselves.
Mr. Prigozhin, while becoming a relatively popular figure among certain groups, was never a serious or convincing candidate as a national leader. His statements about the war in Ukraine, for instance, have been wildly contradictory in recent weeks. First, he said that to defeat the enemy in Ukraine, Russians should tighten their belts and be ready to live like North Koreans. Not long after, he took an altogether different tack — there was no need for an invasion of Ukraine at all, he argued.
A measure of the surreal nature of Mr. Prigozhin’s offensive, and of stability in Russia today, is the confusion over what he hoped to achieve when he set his fast-moving convoy off toward Moscow. What he and Mr. Putin have in common, in addition to both emerging from the depths of the authoritarian system, is that they have problems with goal-setting and strategic vision. What did Mr. Prigozhin want to do? Replace Mr. Putin, his teacher in the profession of gaining power? Too ambitious. Unseat his recent nemesis, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu? Too petty, and certainly not worth a civil war in Russia’s capital.
Perhaps assessing that Mr. Putin was ultimately stronger, and that the goals of his own campaign were uncertain, Mr. Prigozhin agreed to mediated negotiations with Mr. Putin’s envoy, President Aleksandr Lukashenko of Belarus, and stopped his convoy. (His exact whereabouts, as of Monday, were unknown.)
Nevertheless, the revolt gave the world a rare window into the Russian state’s slow decline. No state with functioning institutions can thrive while in pursuit of senseless military expansionism that contradicts the meaning of democratic and civic values, the most important of which is human life. During Russia’s transition from democracy to authoritarianism to hybrid totalitarianism, Mr. Putin and his elite inner circle have colonized civil society and built a system of repression. This is not a sign of strength, but of desperation. And the outsourcing of critical government functions, like the military role handed to Mr. Prigozhin and his Wagner force, is a glaring manifestation of that weakness.