Author: Cozmin Gușă
Seven years ago, the so-called coup attempt against the Erdogan regime took place in Turkey, as a result of which the “Sultan” from Istanbul created the opportunity to eliminate American agents from the top of the Turkish army, also annihilating Fethullah Gulen’s network of civilians and activists, additionally arresting any influential suspect who was documented as not obeying him. The international community was easily deceived, I remember how Angela Merkel campaigned for the urgent support of Erdogan, and afterwards no one discussed the act, because it was a shameful event for the lack of expertise, but also of solutions, of Euro-Atlantic diplomacy. I said then, and I repeat now, that the play “The Sultan and the Coup” was staged in Turkey, an extremely useful operation for consolidating Erdogan’s power, without which he would not be president today.
What happened yesterday in Russia is similar to what happened in Turkey, with the specific difference given by the fact that the whole world was paralyzed with fear, one could easily guess what a Russia in chaos would mean, with the infrastructure of nuclear weapons reaching the hands of Russian generals. I made a bet yesterday at lunch with some acquaintances that by the evening Prigozhin would capitulate or be physically eliminated, I bet on it precisely because everything smelled like it was staged, even more poorly directed than what Erdogan did in 2016. Why do I say that it is appropriate to name the “play” staged in Moscow “The Tsar, the Butler and the Cook”, identifying the characters here as Putin, Lukashenko, and Prigozhin, respectively? The president of Russia runs the country autocratically, like a tsar, he takes into account only the opinions of close people, and not all the time (!), whoever dares to contradict him is quickly eliminated. Lukashenko, the Belarusian leader, can only stay in power with Putin’s support, and this makes him accept any task imposed by the Kremlin, his valet behavior being well identified especially during the Ukrainian war. Finally, Prigozhin actually had the status of Putin’s chef for a long time, he organized the Russian leader’s lavish dinners, and even served at the table himself when total discretion was needed. Putin trusts him so much that he has also put the task of financing the Wagner troops to him, and you can imagine that the sums have been in the order of many billions of dollars in the last 10 years (the real military leader of the Wagner mercenaries is actually the fierce GRU colonel Dmitri Utkin, the chef Prigozhin being more in charge of the PR as you’ve all noticed). Anyone who thinks that Prigozhin has been left to run wild and comment of his own volition over the past year is naive or uninformed, if he hadn’t benefited from Putin’s coordination and protection he would have been dead long ago.
So, in summary, yesterday we had to deal with an operation after which Prigozhin had to scare the world about what the Russian nuclear danger would really mean, to publicly mark the dissatisfaction with the two leaders of the Russian army, Minister Shoigu and Chief of Staff Gerasimov; that the discipline of the Wagner mercenaries who “didn’t shed Russian blood” should be recorded, and in the evening, the clown-looking chef should be saved by the intervention and negotiation of “the valet” Lukashenko, and extracted in Belarus.
If these things have become clear since last night, it remains to be clarified what exactly forced Putin to stage such an operation that makes him vulnerable in any case, and even makes him a laughing stock in front of many of those who credited him as being a sophisticated guy in solving crisis situations. The answer is related to the dissatisfaction of the leaders of the Russian army, including the two chiefs, Shoigu and Gerasimov, for the procrastination of the Ukrainian war. They have always campaigned for harsh and bloody operations, for the use of the huge arsenal and capacity to start a real war in Ukraine, which would have led to the total destruction of the military infrastructure of the Ukrainians and their submission. But Putin has a different strategy, with a low-key and protracted military conflict, against which the international order will be gradually restored, but to the advantage of the bloc led by China and Russia, according to the deals agreed underground with President Xi. The operations dedicated to de-dollarization of the world, for example, are sophisticated and require clear stages of execution, the formatting of the BRICS+ block is also done according to a calendar that today excludes total war and the grounding of Ukraine. Through yesterday’s event, Putin created the context in which to try to decapitate the military leaders who do not agree with his strategy, respectively others who would oppose him, and we will be able to see the execution of these things starting today. The US and the West, understanding the imminent danger of the alternative represented by the hard bosses in the Russian military, if they do not begin to show understanding towards Putin, will anyway play a neutrality that will benefit Putin’s plans, as they did in his case Erdogan in 2016.
I will come back with comments about the emerging situations and the geopolitical implications, finally I recommend you again an exceptional film, ”The Sum of all Fears” (with Morgan Freeman and Ben Affleck), made twenty years ago, but readded (interesting, isn’t it?!) by Netflix now, where a situation similar to the one in Russia today is staged. You will more easily understand the current stakes, including US involvement, but also the fact that certain situations and solutions are perennial.
