The future of the Russian Federation after the mutiny of the “Wagner” group: four scenarios
The extraordinary march of the forces of the leader of the Wagner group Yevgeny Prigozhin to Moscow ended suddenly in a few hours on June 24. But Prigozhin’s decision to relinquish power and move to Belarus will not be the end of history, says the Atlantic Council.
While the immediate crisis for Russian President Putin may have dissipated, what scenarios should U.S. and allied officials prepare for in the coming days, weeks, months, and beyond? Here are four possible paths for Russia’s future.
- A weakened Putin rules
Putin restores order and effectively reduces the ability of Prigozhin and the Wagner group to challenge his rule. Wagner remains in Belarus in a reduced capacity, and his other fighters return home or join the ranks of the regular armed forces of Russia.
Nevertheless, even if Putin remains in power for the foreseeable future, the facade of order and stability he has created during his two decades in power will be shattered, and Russia’s would-be czar will show himself vulnerable to rival players. Swift action to oust Prigozhin will deter potential domestic rivals from following Wagner’s example, but Putin still needs to take special care to rein in various oligarchic interests and power players.
Russia’s internal dynamics are also being shaped and will be shaped during the war in Ukraine. Defeating the insurgency and preventing serious immediate challenges to his authority allows Putin to refocus to some extent on the military effort.
In this scenario, Putin is in a better position to focus his security forces on preventing major gains from a Ukrainian counteroffensive. The speed of the resolution of the crisis, as well as the absence of subsequent crises in Russia, means that any impact on the morale of Russian soldiers is limited. Ukraine can still make some important gains in this counteroffensive, but its forces will receive less help due to internal disarray in Russia.
The United States and its NATO allies see Putin as weak and potentially vulnerable, although they still have to contend with him as Russia’s leader. However, seeing its weakness, they are willing to continue supplying weapons to Ukraine and keep up the pressure on Moscow, with possibly new weapons systems on the horizon (such as the Army’s ATACMS long-range tactical missile systems).
Meanwhile, a weakened Putin is becoming increasingly dependent on China, further cementing Russia’s status as China’s junior partner. China does not want to lose its main strategic partner, and this scenario offers Beijing greater predictability as it can continue to engage with Putin. Chinese leader Xi Jinping may turn his attention to the Prigozhin mutiny and consider threats to his rule and his party’s rule in China; however, he could also take solace in how quickly the crisis passed.
- A new mode is installed
In the summer of 1991, Kremlin hardliners attempted a coup against Soviet President and General Secretary of the Communist Party Mikhail Gorbachev. The coup failed, but Gorbachev was weakened and left power by the end of the year.
In this scenario, Putin will suffer a similar fate. Prigozhin’s challenge is currently bypassing him, but Putin’s political position is irreparably and rapidly deteriorating. Domestic competitors are lining up, consolidating their forces and waiting for the right opportunity to strike.
Faced with domestic threats, Putin has been distracted from hostilities in Ukraine and has even been forced to redeploy security forces to deal with his rivals. At the same time, the counteroffensive is gaining momentum. Ukrainian troops are breaking through weak spots in Russian lines, reclaiming a large swath of territory and severing the land bridge that Russia created by occupying Ukrainian territory from the Russian border to Crimea. Morale among the Russian troops is falling and disgruntled soldiers return to Russia, angry at the country’s political leadership for sending them to fight a bloody war that has failed.
At this moment, Putin’s opponents strike. Perhaps Prigozhin and Wagner’s group will recover in Belarus and make another trip to Moscow. In addition, or as an alternative, other nationalist forces use disaffected troops to create their own miniature armies outside the state’s sphere of competence. Regardless of the specific mechanism, the political and military elites turn against Putin, who is killed or forced to “resign.”
Although chaos seems inevitable, the new regime quickly consolidates power, averting civil war and restoring order to the post-Putin era. The war in Ukraine is not over immediately, but the need to restore order makes any significant new Russian offensive less likely in the near to medium term, and the new regime is instead focused on salvaging some of the war’s gains while maintaining domestic stability.
The United States and NATO are adjusting to this new reality by assessing the new authoritarian regime. There may be an opportunity to ease tensions if a long-term peace agreement or ceasefire is reached in Ukraine, although a complete warming of relations is unlikely. The tough talk about the West may continue in the propaganda media, but the weakening of Russia’s conventional military forces undermines the idea that it poses a serious threat to its NATO allies. Still dealing with the fallout from the change of power at home, the new regime is averse to provocations abroad and might instead seek stability in its relations with external powers. Nevertheless, the behavior of the new Russian leadership is not entirely predictable, and NATO is preparing to deter and defend against potential acts of aggression by the new regime.
This scenario presents unwanted uncertainty for China, which must manage relations with a post-Putin regime. The new regime may remain generally pro-China, recognizing its need to rely more on its main strategic partner. On the other hand, in the absence of a strong partnership between Xi and Putin, it is likely that the new leadership will not want to be a junior partner to Beijing, and relations between the two countries will weaken, although a shared dislike of the United States will remain.
- A storm is coming
As in the previous scenario, there is a temporary pause in tensions, and then there is a transition to civil war. Opponents of Putin are encouraged by his apparent weakness, which is exacerbated by the worsening situation on the battlefield in Ukraine. However, in this case, no competitor is strong enough to consolidate power.
Russia is disintegrating into competing power blocs. This could mean that Putin will retain power and loyal supporters in some parts of Russia, even as Prigozhin and nationalist leaders create quasi-feudal fiefdoms elsewhere. This scenario will become even more complicated due to the growth of separatist movements, which will further divide Russia.
As one of the United States’ main geopolitical rivals fragments, this scenario raises other questions.
For example, what will happen to Russia’s nuclear weapons? Russia has thousands of nuclear warheads and the civil war opens up opportunities for various players to take advantage of the chaos and gain access to these weapons. Wanting to avoid this spread, the United States and NATO seek to contain the civil war within Russia’s borders.
As for the war in Ukraine, the ongoing civil war is causing Russian lines to collapse rapidly due to the breakdown of the command and control system. Competing players compete for the loyalty of embittered but battle-hardened soldiers returning to Russia.
This scenario is particularly bad for China as it sees its main strategic partner thrown into disarray. It also heightens China’s concerns about nuclear proliferation in the region, as well as creating instability on its border and a potential influx of refugees. In such a scenario, China needs to devote significant resources to securing a long border that it previously did not have to worry too much about. Russia’s energy industry is also suffering, meaning Beijing cannot rely on Moscow to meet its exorbitant energy needs and must look elsewhere for supplies. In addition, especially under this scenario, Beijing may become even more wary of invading Taiwan as it witnesses the regime-dangerous domestic instability that failed invasions can cause.
- Reformers use from the moment
The last scenario worth considering is the possibility of a reformist regime coming to power in Moscow. As in the previous two scenarios, the temporary lull in tension after the Wagner mutiny gives way to new challenges to Putin’s rule, accelerated by the deterioration of the battlefield.
Putin manages to retain power in Russia’s March 2024 presidential election, which is marked by fraud and widely recognized as illegitimate by the population. In this case, a more democratic opposition, possibly linked to Oleksii Navalny, seizes the opportunity and manages to garner enough popular support, and rallies and protests across Russia promote change. Under intense pressure, Kremlin elites sympathize with the reformers, and Putin eventually decides to resign. The reformist leader wins the presidential election, defined by the Constitution. After the arrival and consolidation of power, the new government seeks to end the war in Ukraine as soon as possible, focusing on the implementation of anti-corruption and political reforms in Russia.
For the United States and NATO, this scenario increases the likelihood that Russia will become a more responsible member of the international system and reduces military tensions between the Alliance and Moscow. However, change will not happen overnight, and a reformist Russia will have to deal with deep-rooted corruption and economic problems. China, for its part, considers this scenario catastrophic, as it faces a nuclear power on its border that is ideologically more sympathetic to the West.
These scenarios are not exhaustive, but they do account for four likely futures that U.S. and allied policymakers should consider in their strategic planning. The scenario in which a reformist opposition comes to power is the least likely, as Russia has long proven resistant to broad political reforms, and it is unclear whether there is a movement organized enough and with enough broad support to take advantage of the power vacuum. The first scenario is the closest to the status quo, and Putin has been extremely resilient as a leader; on the other hand, Putin has also never seemed weaker, and the external pressure caused by Ukraine’s success on the battlefield could contribute to his downfall.
Geoffrey Cimmino is the Deputy Director of Operations and a Fellow in the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.