The Reason Prigozhin's Assasination Leaves Putin Weaker

For all his emotional excesses and demand for public acclamation, Prigozhin was brutal enough to achieve some limited success, unlike any of Putin's favored armchair generals. 

His absence reduces competitive pressure on the regular army to perform and exposes the continued incompetence of Russia's Ukraine war prosecution. This, by extension, also reveals Putin's own shortcomings as a war leader - and weakens him in the eyes of a populace not known for its tolerance of weakness. JL

Holman Jenkins reports in the Wall Street Journal:

The Ukraine war is ever more neglected and subordinated to Mr. Putin’s battle for survival in Moscow. Prigozhin  was a rare model for success in that war. Ditto Gen. Sergey Surovikin, relieved in the same 24-hour period for suspect loyalty. Their fate now leaves little incentive for others to retrieve Mr. Putin’s war for him, to show initiative, to do the things that excite the public. Putin still can’t find a way to replace his top military leadership whose incompetence Prigozhin publicly exposed. Doing so would leave only Mr. Putin’s own incompetent authorship of a failed, going-nowhere war for his public to dwell on.

A strong Kremlin would have arrested, tried and sentenced him. A weak regime parleyed with Yevgeny Prigozhin, then shot him in the back.

Influential Russians have no trouble interpreting events. Leaping to our own minds should be the Sparks Steak House murder of Paul Castellano ordered by John Gotti. The remarkably passive Mr. Putin bestirs himself when he sees a threat to his own comfortable position. He still can’t find a way, though, to replace his top military leadership whose incompetence Prigozhin publicly exposed. Doing so would leave only Mr. Putin’s own incompetent authorship of a failed, going-nowhere war for his public, military bloggers and regime gossipers to dwell on.

As predicted, the Ukraine war is ever more neglected and subordinated to Mr. Putin’s battle for survival in Moscow. Prigozhin, after all, was a rare model for success in that war. Ditto Gen. Sergey Surovikin, relieved in the same 24-hour period for suspect loyalty. He created the defensive lines currently giving Ukraine’s advancing troops fits. Their fate now leaves little incentive for others to stand out in the effort to retrieve Mr. Putin’s war for him, to show initiative, to do the things that excite the public.

It’s easy for outsiders to have compunctions in favor of less killing and destruction. A military campaign like Ukraine’s difficult, overanalyzed offensive is always going to be a hostage to fortune. The Chicago Daily News’s Raymond Swing, present on the Turkish side during the ill-fated Dardanelles campaign of World War I, in his memoirs says the Turks had a day’s worth of ammunition left when the British and French called off their attempt to force the straits. “The Allies opened the door to Constantinople and then failed to go through,” he wrote.

Are Russia’s troops so demoralized they will melt away? Not so far. Are Ukraine’s people prepared for the slaughter of newly mobilized young people in unforgiving attempts to reclaim occupied territory? So far, yes.

Other propositions are being tested. Mr. Putin continues to resist escalation as well as full-scale mobilization of his military-age population. This is telling. Finally, what does the U.S. want? My guess is an unraveling of the Putin regime and full reconquest by Ukraine of its territory would be a perfectly acceptable outcome to the Biden administration as long as it didn’t require direct U.S. participation in the war.

 

Mr. Biden, or any other U.S. president, would also be fine with a Korea-style outcome. In fact, the U.S. is likely capable of being content with many outcomes that realize its aim of avoiding a wider war. Despite what some in Kyiv appear to think, though, this doesn’t mean the U.S. is playing for the war to carry on indefinitely draining Russia of resources and its government of legitimacy.

At the same time, complaints about shortfalls in Western supplies are understandable but Ukraine’s responsibility is to make decisions in light of reality, including the reality that the Western priority is to keep the war contained, not to secure liberation of Ukrainian territory.

Which brings us to the real problem: Even Ukraine expelling Russia from its territory still wouldn’t end the war unless it also brings to power a reformist, peacenik regime in Moscow, a consummation Ukraine’s admirable soldiers can’t provide.

So Mr. Putin’s war is likely to continue inconclusively; a shakeup of his hierarchy and strategy seems beyond him. The U.S., under any administration, will increasingly turn its attention elsewhere, unless the Russians start winning. Unlikely by current thinking, NATO’s direct involvement could still be a possibility. But then it would be Washington’s war, not Kyiv’s, and Kyiv may not like the result.

Altogether the occasion may soon be ripe for Ukraine to become realistic about its allies—and to think about when and how to de-emphasize fighting in favor of making Ukraine the West Berlin of this new Cold War.

The West Berlining of Ukraine means turning itself into the West’s most important front-line state, with no expense spared to bring into being a NATO-class force capable of long-term deterrence. Sanctions on Russia will remain while any Putin-like regime is in power. Thinking in terms of a decade or more, investment in transit options through Romania and other NATO neighbors is a realistic way to secure Ukraine’s seaborne trade despite Russia’s presence in Crimea and on part of Ukraine’s Black Sea coast.

Not required is any concession of territory or any settlement terms as the Putin status quo continues to rot. President Volodymyr Zelensky, a natural-born bridge builder in his fragmented society, is a good fit to sell his countrymen on an Adenauer-like vision for securing peace and victory in the long term. If he can’t, somebody will.