By GUSTAVO A. CALVO

Many have seen this day as the fall of the leader of a military power and a possible sign of a turning pointa new beginning. Perhaps we are thinking a lot like the sixty senators who imagined the fall of Caesar as the end of a nightmare and the birth of a better era. Back then, as now, it was not clear the day after. History showed that for them it did not end up meaning a better future and the civil war that followed implied that sometimes the rolling of a head is not enough to change the world.

The Serpent’s Egg

A decade ago, Dmitri Valerievich Utkin a Ukrainian from Kirovograd trained in the GRU (military intelligence) was returning to Russia after fighting in the Slavic Corps in the Syrian war. It was an organization that functioned as a private military contractor. Although it seems like a bad joke to us, in Russia the existence of private military armies that we colloquially call mercenaries is illegal, as a result the Slavic Corps officially settled in Hong Kong. As a premonitory element, we can comment that the group, poorly armed and not supported by Syrian or Russian regular forces, ended up surrounded by the Syrian rebels of Yeish Al-Islam and returned to the mother country. Faced with failure, Moscow imposed Russian laws and dissolved the persecuting and imprisoning its owners and many of its members, accused of being illegal mercenaries.

But the seed had  been planted in Utkin. In October 2013, already in Russia, he began the creation of a military group that bears the name of his favorite musician and that of Hitler. The political and regional environment would soon give him opportunities to prove himself and act. A turbulent Ukraine, amputated from a pro-Soviet turn by a Washington-backed coup, gave Moscow excuses to secure a vital strategic defense position in Crimea and spark conflict in the Donbass. In both places Utkin and his troops were seen and from then on his presence in meetings, appearances in photos and attendance at palace political conclaves were frequent. Those dates, during 2014, are those that are mentioned as the moment of creation of the group.

After training more numerous troops, he returned to Syria in 2015. High death tolls were only known about this incursion two years later, followed by U.S. sanction for violation of human rights on the ground. The figure of Yevgeny Prigozhin began to appear as the economic support of the group and then as the visible head for all purposes, perhaps because the golden rule of business is that whoever puts in the gold sets the rules. In this way, while the figure of Utkin fades into the shadows of history surrounded by international sanctions and condemnations, Prigozhin, from his restaurants and his lobby, assumes the leading role and begins to climb a ladder to power.

Prigozhin actually has a lot more under his belt than a food chain. Computer systems, information and survey companies, online databases, troll farms that have already confessed to being the protagonists of interference in two US elections. Emboldened and enjoying his fifteen minutes of fame, he now claims to have founded the group. He even personally started the stage of recruiting criminals from Russian prisons from August 2022 to join the ranks of the organization.

It is very likely that, during the annexation of Crimea, Utkin was absorbed into the Prigozhin business network. This explains the return to Syria with better weapons, the deployment in the Donbass training the fledgling pro-Russian Ukrainian army and the expansion of the organization providing security services to African countries.

The Armed Wing of Foreign Policy

Today it is an important element of Russian influence in Africa, also having its own mineral extraction and marketing business in countries where it operates, such as gold in Sudan.

In the Central African Republic, the personal security of the president, the training of the army and the surveillance of the gold and diamond mines are his exclusive mission.

Libya, Mali, Mozambique, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Zimbabwe, Madagascar and Angola are current areas of work for them.

By the way, Russian citizens became a minority within their ranks, integrating Turks, Serbs, Czechs, Poles, Hungarians, Germans and Canadians.

The initial ideology related to Nazism has been diluted and is not part of its objectives or its current worldview. They are a force behind geopolitical goals, not ideological ones.

Its mission is related to the expansion of Russian influence abroad (its government is a co-financier), minimal attention to human rights (they do not imply a variable to consider) and under the umbrella of impunity that gives it its private nature and not a formal member of the Russian military.

This last concept becomes central in the analysis of international relations.

In the framework of an international armed conflict, its legal participants are the combatants of the parties that comprise it. Combatants have the right to kill and can be legally killed. If they fall under the control of an opposing party, he is a prisoner of war and is treated under the 1949 Geneva Convention. Except for acts of genocide or crimes against humanity, one of the recognized privileges of a combatant is immunity from criminal prosecution for the very fact of their participation in an armed conflict, representing their armed forces. Militias and volunteer units belonging to a belligerent military apparatus are met by these criteria. Wagnerians can claim to belong to the broad Russian military strategy and be considered combatants.

The normative paradox here is that Kiev considers them prisoners of war, giving the right to this line of reasoning (it even includes them in prisoner exchanges), while Moscow disregards them as an organization acting in the interests of the Federation’s armed forces. Russian or is part of them. That’s right: PVK «Wagner» is not a legal entity, it is not listed in the public registers of the Russian Federation, it operates outside the national law (since there is no special legislation regulating the activities of private military companies).

Three fundamental elements present in the Prigozhin-Putin relationship derive from this diffuse, deregulated and clandestine framework.

On the one hand, the wide discretion in the nature of the agreements between Wagner and his government clients, allowing them to exchange security for natural resources, creates true global side deals and turns even their middle managers into powerful businessmen. putin

Second, the undeniable political, economic and geopolitical advantage for Moscow of this action, where Putin only adds strength without officially compromising the Russian State. Just as Carlos I did not ask the cost of the gold and silver galleons sent to him by Hernán Cortés, the Russian Federation has so far increased its influence, endured sanctions, ordered its economy, and accessed strategic minerals in part by increasing its portfolio of countries with close ties .

Thirdly, derived from the two previous ones, that is, advantages obtained from an association with an ungovernable entity, the problem of the balance of the corporate relationship arises.

How far can Putin allow Prigozhin to grow?

How far can Prigozhin withstand the temptation of a claw?

The Inevitable Misstep and Likely Lines of Analysis.

In the last few hours, one of two things has happened, either Prigozhin, upset by the lack of support in materials and supplies from the army, decides to mobilize and force a change of command at the top of the Russian Armed Forces, or on the other hand, he gave a real attack on the Wagnerians to try their reaction either by the duo Sergei Shoigu – Valery Gerasimov or by some unlikely Ukrainian commando or force.

Anyway, the limits in the power relationship between the Kremlin and Wagner are put on the table.

If Prigozhin is the one who has had the initiative, it is a moment where we will be able to appreciate both the muscle of military reaction and the signals that the Russian population gives us regarding their perception of the war, of the Russian state and particularly of Vladimir Putin.

For now, the questions will be more than the answers:

·         Is Prigozhin taking advantage of slow and costly advances in casualties but real ones in Bakhmut while the army is only falling back in other areas? In this case, is it time for a clawing blow seeking support from dissidents within the Kremlin or perhaps from Putin himself?

·         Is Prizoghin showing that he has reached the limit of his recruitment and given the massacre in Bakhmut, he cannot recover enough troops to avoid losing political relevance in the eyes of Putin?

·         Does Progozhin have any aces up his sleeve, and is there any real political support in the making for a change in the General Staff or in the Kremlin itself?

·         Is Putin really in control of the situation, does he maintain leadership, and in that case has Prigozhin reached the end of his political career?

·         Does Putin also have aces up his sleeve and will we see a Wagner Group operating without Prigozhin?

·         Is it a breaking point and can a popular uprising be expected to bring down the regime? In this case, what comes next? Is it better or worse?

This is an internal problem and after negotiating certain guarantees for Wagner, will we see a return to normality (if that’s what you can call it)?

Looking Forward

The springs of strategic response at the highest level seem to work: bridges have been cut, security cordons implemented, strategic allies informed and the military leadership seems aligned behind Putin.

The NATO officials who have spoken have treated this as an internal Russian issue, showing no enthusiasm in anticipation of a change of course in the war. Perhaps if we have to wait for a weakening of military capabilities due to the wounds left by these events.

As his march on Moscow began, Prigozhin has increasingly focused his speech on Sergei Shoigu, blaming him for fabricating the Ukraine war by giving Putin a false sense of danger to satisfy personal ambitions. The idea of a coup d’état as an objective is slowly fading away.

Rightly or wrongly, the scope of these events is seen by the military high command as a political tantrum by Prigozhin to get Putin’s attention and more support in the face of a real reduction in his troops. But at the same time it leaves new questions.

Was there an actual attack on Wagner’s forces? That doesn’t seem so easy to invent, even at this stage of disinformation, especially since disinformation has adversaries and independent correlates most of the time.

Can Putin have the same perception of military inefficiency as Prigozhin, even disciplining him? Putin is not Gorbachev, his hand does not tremble in a crisis situation, regardless of whether he is right or not, whether he is successful or not. Still cruel and dehumanized by our standards, he has shown executive and quick management of the power resources he possesses. In this hypothesis, perhaps a thorough scalpel will continue in the military body after solving the Wagner problem .

The solution of the Wagner problem goes through several axes, but in my opinion far from extremes.

I do not see the collapse of any Russian power structure, be it political or military. The images of people singing in the Moscow subways is another indication that Russian nationalist sentiment remains the main engine of social cohesion… and that does not include overthrowing a government in the midst of a civilizing war against the West.

I also do not see the cancellation of the group that has given the best military results to date, has been an engine of international expansion and is a privileged partner in the extraction of wealth from related countries that has prevented the sudden death of the Russian industrial park after of the sanctions.

Wagner needs the Kremlin and the Kremlin needs Wagner.

An empowered Wagner after concessions obtained under the guise of guarantees for peace? It is very possible and perhaps it is the scenario that we see in the short term.

A diminished Wagner who sees his beheading, alignment under military command and without Prigozhin? It is more likely in the medium term and series consistent with the way of acting of the Russian political homo .

Whatever happens, there are important lessons to consider:

– Russia has demonstrated the potential of using private military contractors on a large scale. The United States showed great capacity and coordination by building its Iraq war on them. The UK has attached them (at high financial cost) to limited operations in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya. But in this case we see an organization agreeing with national States and exploiting economic resources on a large scale.

– This implies an urgent revision of the norms of International Public Law, giving clear guidelines for the legal treatment of these groups, distinguishing them or not from terrorist groups, establishing the limits of their classification, the jurisdiction to which they are subjected, etc. The same happens with its identification, or not, with the term mercenary, which has a differential treatment by the Geneva Conventions.

– The countries that use this war tool (the majority do) must clearly establish the terms of association. The dependence on institutional structures is a legal shield for States and their sustainability. The West has oiled this mechanism and Russia seems to have given a free hand without measuring the consequences. His own political system is about to be taken by storm by strangers who have been invited to dinner by the host himself.

or  It seems clear that governments do not have strong lines of control over Human Rights violations, both against prisoners and civilians, committed by contractors, from the cells at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo to the victims of the Bucha massacre. On this topic, we obviously jump to the ever-present conclusion that the best way to avoid the deaths and injustices of a war is not to get into it. Should we then resign ourselves since it seems inevitable to use armed groups that we know will cross the line of what is acceptable?

There are many more questions and lessons that inhabit the political and strategic terrain, but here we limit ourselves to looking at the possible day after these events, immersed in a greater international game that is even more important than this war that is basically nothing more than a bloody instrument of a long-term geopolitical strategy.