Tag: russia news

Putin replaces Shoigu as Russia’s Defence Minister as he starts his fifth term

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Russian President Vladimir Putin on May 12 replaced Sergei Shoigu as Defence Minister in a Cabinet shakeup that comes as he begins his fifth term in office.

In line with Russian law, the entire Russian Cabinet resigned on Tuesday following Mr. Putin’s glittering inauguration in the Kremlin, and most members have been widely expected to keep their jobs, while Mr. Shoigu’s fate had appeared uncertain.

Mr. Putin signed a decree on Sunday appointing Mr. Shoigu as secretary of Russia’s Security Council, the Kremlin said. The appointment was announced shortly after Mr. Putin proposed Andrei Belousov to become the country’s Defence Minister in place of Mr. Shoigu.

The announcement of Mr. Shoigu’s new role came as 13 people were reported dead and 20 more wounded in Russia’s border city of Belgorod, where a 10-story apartment building partially collapsed after what Russian officials said was Ukrainian shelling. Ukraine has not commented on the incident.

Mr. Belousov’s candidacy will need to be approved by Russia’s Upper House in parliament, the Federation Council. It reported on Sunday that Mr. Putin introduced proposals for other Cabinet positions as well but Mr. Shoigu is the only Minister on that list who is being replaced. Several other new candidates for Federal Ministers were proposed on Saturday by Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, reappointed by Mr. Putin on Friday.

Mr. Shoigu’s deputy, Timur Ivanov, was arrested last month on bribery charges and was ordered to remain in custody pending an official investigation. The arrest of Mr. Ivanov was widely interpreted as an attack on Mr. Shoigu and a possible precursor of his dismissal, despite his close personal ties with Mr. Putin.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Sunday that Mr. Putin had decided to give the Defence Minister role to a civilian because the Ministry should be “open to innovation and cutting-edge ideas.” He also said the increasing defence Budget “must fit into the country’s wider economy,” and Mr. Belousov, who until recently served as the first Deputy Prime Minister, is the right fit for the job.

Mr. Belousov, 65, held leading positions in the finances and economic department of the Prime Minister’s office and the Ministry of Economic Development. In 2013, he was appointed an adviser to Mr. Putin and seven years later, in January 2020, he became first deputy Prime Minister.

Mr. Peskov assured that the reshuffle will not affect “the military aspect,” which “has always been the prerogative of the Chief of General Staff,” and Gen. Valery Gerasimov, who currently serves in this position, will continue his work.

Tatiana Stanovaya, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, said in an online commentary that Mr. Shoigu’s new appointment to Russia’s Security Council showed that the Russian leader viewed the institution as “a reservoir” for his “‘former’ key figures — people who he cannot in any way let go, but does not have a place for.”

Figures such as former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev have also been appointed to the security council. Mr. Medvedev has served as the body’s deputy chairman since 2020.

Mr. Shoigu was appointed to the Security Council instead of Nikolai Patrushev, Mr. Putin’s long-term ally. Mr. Peskov said Sunday that Mr. Patrushev is taking on another role, and promised to reveal details in the coming days.

Mr. Shoigu has been widely seen as a key figure in Mr. Putin’s decision to send Russian troops into Ukraine. Russia had expected the operation to quickly overwhelm Ukraine’s much smaller and less-equipped army and for Ukrainians to broadly welcome Russian troops.

Instead, the conflict galvanised Ukraine to mount an intense defence, dealing the Russian army humiliating blows, including the retreat from an attempt to take the capital, Kyiv, and a counteroffensive that drove Moscow’s forces out of the Kharkiv region.

Before he was named Defence Minister in 2012, Mr. Shoigu spent more than 20 years directing markedly different work: In 1991, he was appointed head of the Russian Rescue Corps disaster-response agency, which eventually became the Ministry of Emergency Situations. He became highly visible in the post. The job also allowed him to be named a general even though he had no military service behind him as the rescue corps absorbed the militarised Civil Defence Troops.

Mr. Shoigu does not wield the same kind of power as Mr. Patrushev, who has long been the country’s top security official. But the position he will take — the same position that Patrushev worked to transform from a minor bureaucratic role to a place of sizable influence — will still carry some authority, according to Mark Galeotti, head of the Mayak Intelligence consultancy.

High-level security materials intended for the President’s eyes will still pass through the Security Council Secretariat, even with changes at the top. “You can’t just institutionally turn around a bureaucracy and how it works overnight,” he said.

Thousands of civilians have fled Russia’s renewed ground offensive in Ukraine’s northeast that has targeted towns and villages with a barrage of artillery and mortar shelling, officials said Sunday.

The intense battles have forced at least one Ukrainian unit to withdraw in the Kharkiv region, capitulating more land to Russian forces across less defended settlements in the so-called contested gray zone along the Russian border.

By Sunday afternoon, the town of Vovchansk, among the largest in the northeast with a prewar population of 17,000, emerged as a focal point in the battle.

Volodymyr Tymoshko, the head of the Kharkiv regional police, said that Russian forces were on the outskirts of the town and approaching from three directions.

An AP team, positioned in a nearby village, saw plumes of smoke rising from the town as Russian forces hurled shells. Evacuation teams worked nonstop throughout the day to take residents, most of whom were older, out of harm’s way.

At least 4,000 civilians have fled the Kharkiv region since Friday, when Moscow’s forces launched the operation, Gov. Oleh Syniehubov said in a social media statement. Heavy fighting raged Sunday along the northeast front line, where Russian forces attacked 27 settlements in the past 24 hours, he said.

Analysts say the Russian push is designed to exploit ammunition shortages before promised Western supplies can reach the front line.

Ukrainian soldiers said the Kremlin is using the usual Russian tactic of launching a disproportionate amount of fire and infantry assaults to exhaust Ukrainian troops and firepower. By intensifying battles in what was previously a static patch of the front line, Russian forces threaten to pin down Ukrainian forces in the northeast, while carrying out intense battles farther south where Moscow is also gaining ground.

It comes after Russia stepped up attacks in March targeting energy infrastructure and settlements, which analysts predicted were a concerted effort to shape conditions for an offensive.

The Russian Defence Ministry said Sunday that its forces had captured four villages on the border along Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, in addition to five villages reported to have been seized on Saturday. These areas were likely poorly fortified because of the dynamic fighting and constant heavy shelling, easing a Russian advance.

Ukraine’s leadership hasn’t confirmed Moscow’s gains. But Tymoshko, the head of the Kharkiv regional police, said that Strilecha, Pylna and Borsivika were under Russian occupation, and it was from their direction they were bringing in infantry to stage attacks in other embattled villages of Hlyboke and Lukiantsi.

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IS-Khorasan’s attacks in Russia, Iran point to an Islamic State resurgence | Analysis

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In June 2015, a few months after the Islamic State (IS) announced the establishment of its Wilayat Khorasan (Khorasan Province), the Taliban wrote a letter to the then IS chief, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, asking him to stop recruiting jihadists in Afghanistan. The letter, signed by the then political committee chief of the Taliban, Mullah Akhtar Mansour (who would take over the insurgency in a month and be killed by a U.S. air strike in May 2016), said there was room for “only one flag and one leadership” in the fight to re-establish Islamic rule in Afghanistan. But the IS faction, which came to be known as the Islamic State-Khorasan (IS-K), did not stop recruiting disgruntled Taliban fighters. In the subsequent years, the IS-K attacked the Taliban for holding talks with the “crusaders” (read the U.S.) and abandoning jihad. It launched a series of attacks, mainly targeting Afghanistan’s Shia-Hazara minority.       


ALSO READ | The View From India | Why did the Islamic State attack Russia?

Today, the IS-K has emerged as the most powerful and most ambitious branch of the Islamic State networks. It has training centres in the Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. It has recruited thousands of disgruntled Central Asians. It has stepped up attacks in recent months across the Eurasian landmass, including the January twin bombings of Kerman, Iran, a strike on a church in Istanbul in the same month and a massive attack on a concert hall in the outskirts of Moscow on March 22. Armed gunmen opened fire at the Crocus City Concert Hall and threw explosives, killing at least 137 people and wounding nearly 200 others, in one of the worst terrorist attacks in Russia in years. Russian authorities have arrested and charged four Tajik nationals for the attack.  

The origins 

When the Islamic State announced the formation of the Khorasan Province, referring to an area encompassing Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia, in January 2015, the group’s immediate strategy was to exploit the divisions within the main jihadist groups operating in the region. It appointed Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) commander Hafiz Saeed Khan as its leader and former Afghan Taliban commander Abdul Rauf Aliza as his deputy (both were killed in U.S. strikes). It attracted members from different militant organisations such as Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jamaat-ud-Dawa, the Haqqani Network and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan into its fold, according to the U.S.-based Combating Terrorism Centre.

The IS-K declared its allegiance to Baghdadi. In operational tactics and ideology, it followed its parental organisation. The key goal is to establish “Islamic rule” in the “province” and for that they are ready to wage “jihad”. “There is no doubt that Allah the Almighty has blessed us with jihad in the land of Khorasan since a long time ago, and it is from the grace of Allah that we fought any disbeliever who entered the land of Khorasan. All of this is for the sake of establishing the Shariah,” the IS-K said in a video message in 2015.


ALSO READ | Terror in Moscow: On concerns over the Islamic State

When the IS in Iraq and Syria came under pressure in 2015 and 2016, the core organisation shifted its focus to Afghanistan. The IS was losing territories to Kurdish militias in Syria and government forces and Shia militias in Iraq. In Afghanistan, a divided country with the government’s writ hardly reaching its hinterlands, the IS saw an opportunity to rebuild its organisation. Having built its base in eastern Afghanistan, the IS-K issued propaganda messages, calling on Muslim youth across Asia to join the group. Many radicalised youth, including dozens from India, travelled to Afghanistan to either join the IS or live an “Islamic life” under the Caliphate’s rule.

Rivalry with Taliban

The Taliban did not like its monopoly over violent jihad being challenged by another organisation. Also, the Taliban are a tribal, nationalist militant force, backed by Pakistan, whereas the IS-K doesn’t believe in national borders—they are global jihadists fighting for a transnational Islamist Caliphate.

“The leadership of Daesh [IS] is independent, the goals of Daesh are independent,” Omar Khorasani, who was the IS-K’s top leader, said in an interview in 2021. “We have a global agenda and so when people ask who can really represent Islam and the whole Islamic community, of course, we’re more attractive.” The ideological and operational differences led to open clashes between the IS-K and the Taliban. When the Taliban seized Kabul and took over prisons in August 2021, they freed several of their members, but executed Khorasani and other IS-K militants. Shahab al-Muhajir has been leading the terrorist group as its “Emir” since Khorasani was arrested in April 2020.

Why Russia and Iran?

The U.S. has carried out a number of targeted attacks, killing several of the ISKP’s leaders. In April 2017, U.S. President Donald Trump ordered troops to drop the ‘Mother of all Bombs’, the most powerful non-nuclear bomb, on IS caves in eastern Afghanistan. But despite the U.S.’s targeted bombings and the Taliban’s counter-attacks on the ground, the IS-K has continued to expand its operations. When the Taliban established its regime in Kabul, the IS-K proclaimed that it is the real jihadist outfit. Militants from Central Asia who were part of the Islamic State Caliphate swelled the IS-K’s ranks after they relocated to Afghanistan.

Members of the Russian Emergencies Ministry carry out search and rescue operations at the Crocus City Hall concert venue after a shooting attack and fire, outside Moscow, Russia
| Photo Credit:
Reuters

The IS-K also launched propaganda videos targeting Afghanistan’s ethnic minorities such as Tajiks and Uzbeks, who were excluded by the Taliban’s Pashtun-only regime. Russia and its President Vladimir Putin emerged as the key enemy in the IS’s propaganda videos. After the Moscow attack, the IS said its soldiers had killed a “lot of Christians”. It also said Russia had “blood of Muslims on its hands”, referring to its military operations in Afghanistan, Chechnya and Syria.

Particularly in Syria, where IS was founded in 2014 amid the country’s civil war, it had grand ambitions, which were thwarted by Russia’s 2015 intervention. The IS captured eastern Syrian cities of Raqqa and Der Ezzour in 2013 and 2024, and it wanted to topple the regime of President Bashar al-Assad and capture Damascus, the seat of power of the Umayyad Caliphate in the seventh century. But Russia’s intervention, along with help from Iran, made sure that President Assad survived the civil war.

In 2017, when the IS captured the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra, Russians fought along with the Syrian troops to liberate the city. Subsequently, the IS’s physical Caliphate was crushed by a host of forces — Kurds, Iraqis, Syrians and Shia militias with air cover from Russia and the U.S. Now, the IS-K sees ‘Christian’ Russia and ‘Rejectionist’ Iran (in the IS lexicon, Shias are “rejectionists”, who reject the first three Caliphs of Sunni Islam) as top enemies.

Today, the IS-K wants to be the centre of global jihadism. Back-to-back attacks in different places from Istanbul to Kerman to Moscow suggest that the group is on a path to revival, six years after its physical Caliphate was destroyed. Chaos in West Asia, a base in Afghanistan, and foot soldiers from Central Asia are all helping the group expand its activities, with highly sophisticated internet propaganda.

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60 dead, 145 injured in Russia concert hall raid; Islamic State group claims responsibility

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Assailants burst into a large concert hall in Moscow on March 22 and sprayed the crowd with gunfire, killing over 60 people, injuring more than 100 and setting fire to the venue in a brazen attack just days after President Vladimir Putin cemented his grip on power in a highly orchestrated electoral landslide.

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement posted on affiliated channels on social media. A U.S. intelligence official told AP that U.S. intelligence agencies had learned the group’s branch in Afghanistan was planning an attack in Moscow and shared the information with Russian officials.

It wasn’t immediately clear what happened to the attackers after the raid, which state investigators were investigating as terrorism.

The attack, which left the concert hall in flames with a collapsing roof, was the deadliest in Russia in years and came as the country’s war in Ukraine dragged into a third year. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin called the raid a “huge tragedy.”

The Kremlin said Mr. Putin was informed minutes after the assailants burst into Crocus City Hall, a large music venue on Moscow’s western edge that can accommodate 6,200 people.

The attack took place as crowds gathered for a performance by the Russian rock band Picnic. The Investigative Committee, the top state criminal investigation agency, reported early Saturday that more than 60 people were killed. Health authorities released a list of 145 injured — 115 of them hospitalised, including five children.

Some Russian news reports suggested more victims could have been trapped by the blaze that erupted after the assailants threw explosives.

Smoke rises above the burning Crocus City Hall concert venue following a shooting incident, outside Moscow on March 22, 2024.
| Photo Credit:
Reuters

Video showed the building on fire, with a huge cloud of smoke rising through the night sky. The street was lit up by the blinking blue lights of dozens of firetrucks, ambulances and other emergency vehicles, as fire helicopters buzzed overhead to dump water on the blaze that took hours to contain.

The prosecutor’s office said several men in combat fatigues entered the concert hall and fired on concertgoers.

Dave Primov, who was in the hall during the attack, described panic and chaos when the attack began.

“There were volleys of gunfire,” Mr. Primov told the AP. “We all got up and tried to move toward the aisles. People began to panic, started to run and collided with each other. Some fell down and others trampled on them.”

Videos posted by Russian media and on messaging app channels showed men toting assault rifles shooting screaming people at point-blank range. One video showed a man in the auditorium saying the assailants had set it on fire, as gunshots rang out incessantly.

Guards at the concert hall didn’t have guns, and some could have been killed at the start of the attack, Russian media reported. Some Russian news outlets suggested the assailants fled before special forces and riot police arrived. Reports said police patrols were looking for several vehicles the attackers could have used to escape.

In a statement posted by its Aamaq news agency, the Islamic State group said it attacked a large gathering of “Christians” in Krasnogorsk on Moscow’s outskirts, killing and wounding hundreds. It was not immediately possible to verify the authenticity of the claim.

However, U.S. intelligence officials confirmed the claim by the Islamic State group’s branch based in Afghanistan that it was responsible for the Moscow attack, a U.S. official told the AP.

The official said U.S. intelligence agencies had gathered information in recent weeks that the IS branch was planning an attack in Moscow. He said U.S. officials privately shared the intelligence earlier this month with Russian officials. The official was briefed on the matter but was not authorised to publicly discuss the intelligence information and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.

Noting that the IS statement cast its claim as an attack targeting Christians, Aymenn Jawad al-Tamimi, an expert on the terrorist group, said it appeared to reflect the group’s strategy of “striking wherever they can as part of a global ‘fight the infidels and apostates everywhere.’”

In October 2015, a bomb planted by IS downed a Russian passenger plane over Sinai, killing all 224 people on board, most of them Russian vacation-goers returning from Egypt. The group, which operates mainly in Syria and Iraq but also in Afghanistan and Africa, also has claimed several attacks in Russia’s volatile Caucasus and other regions in the past years. It recruited fighters from Russia and other parts of former Soviet Union.

On March 7, Russia’s top security agency said it thwarted an attack on a synagogue in Moscow by an Islamic State cell, killing several of its members in the Kaluga region near the Russian capital. A few days earlier, Russian authorities said six alleged IS members were killed in a shootout in Ingushetia in Russia’s volatile Caucasus region.

On Friday, statements of outrage, shock and support for those affected by the concert call attack streamed in from around the world.

Some commentators on Russian social media questioned how authorities, who relentlessly surveil and pressure Kremlin critics, failed to identify the threat and prevent the attack.

Russian officials said security was tightened at Moscow’s airports, railway stations and the capital’s sprawling subway system. Moscow’s mayor canceled all mass gatherings, and theaters and museums shut for the weekend. Other Russian regions also tightened security.

The Kremlin didn’t immediately blame anyone for the attack, but some Russian lawmakers were quick to accuse Ukraine and called for ramping up strikes. Hours before the attack, the Russian military l aunched a sweeping barrage on Ukraine’s power system, crippling the country’s biggest hydroelectric plant and other energy facilities and leaving more than a million people without electricity.

Dmitry Medvedev, deputy head of Russia’s Security Council, said that if Ukraine involvement was proven, all those involved “must be tracked down and killed without mercy, including officials of the state that committed such outrage.”

Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, denied Ukraine involvement.

“Ukraine has never resorted to the use of terrorist methods,” he posted on X. “Everything in this war will be decided only on the battlefield.”

John Kirby, spokesman for the White House National Security Council, said he couldn’t yet speak about the details but “the images are just horrible. And just hard to watch.”

Friday’s attack followed a statement earlier this month by the U.S. Embassy in Moscow that urged Americans to avoid crowded places in view of “imminent” plans by extremists to target large gatherings in the Russian capital, including concerts. The warning was repeated by several other Western embassies.

National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said Friday the U.S. government had information about a planned attack in Moscow, prompting the State Department advisory to Americans. The U.S. government shared the information with Russian authorities in accordance with its longstanding “duty to warn” policy, Ms. Watson said.

Mr. Putin, who extended his grip on Russia for another six years in this week’s presidential vote after a sweeping crackdown on dissent, denounced the Western warnings as an attempt to intimidate Russians. “All that resembles open blackmail and an attempt to frighten and destabilise our society,” he said earlier this week.

Russia was shaken by a series of deadly terror attacks in the early 2000s during the fighting with separatists in the Russian province of Chechnya.

In October 2002, Chechen militants took about 800 people hostage at a Moscow theatre. Two days later, Russian special forces stormed the building and 129 hostages and 41 Chechen fighters died, most from the effects of narcotic gas Russian forces use to subdue the attackers.

In September 2004, about 30 Chechen militants seized a school in Beslan in southern Russia taking hundreds of hostages. The siege ended in a bloodbath two days later and more than 330 people, about half of them children, were killed.

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Vladimir Putin | Reign of the patriarch

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There was no surprise. When Russia’s election authorities announced results of the presidential election, Vladimir Putin, who has been in power for nearly a quarter century, was elected for another term. He won 87% of votes, extending his reign for six more years, while his closest rival, Nikolay Kharitonov of the Communist Party of Russian Federation, won 4.31% vote. There was no meaningful challenge to Mr. Putin in the election. Candidates who were critical of his policies, including the Ukraine war, were barred from contesting. State-controlled media hardly allowed any voices of dissent. And Mr. Putin’s approval rating has stayed high, according to Levada Centre, an independent Russian NGO, and he faces no visible or credible challenge to his authority among Russia’s elites.

If he completes his term, Mr. Putin, now 71, would surpass Joseph Stalin as the longest serving leader of modern Russia and the longest serving Russian leader since Catherine the Great, the 18th century Empress, who captured Crimea from the Ottomans and annexed it in 1783.


ALSO READ | It’s ‘Ra-Ra-Ras-Putin’ in the Russian election 

In many ways, Mr. Putin’s rise to power is intertwined with Russia’s own comeback from the forced retreat of the 1990s, which many Russians call the “decade of humiliation”. He has witnessed the peak years of the Cold War, the collapse of the state, which he called a “catastrophe” and the years of chaos. If in the late 1990s, he was seen as the man who could fix Russia’s problems, now he is the face of the state that’s at war in Ukraine “with the collective West” and has built a water-tight authoritarian system at home that allows no dissent.

Rise to power

Born in 1952 in Stalin’s Russia, Mr. Putin graduated in 1975 from Leningrad State University (now Saint Petersburg State University). He served 15 years as a foreign intelligence officer for the KGB (Committee for State Security), of which six years were in Dresden, East Germany. In 1990, a year before the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Mr. Putin retired with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. In the new Russia, he started his political career in St. Petersburg, the former capital of the Tsars. In 1994, he became the first Deputy Mayor of the city. Two years later, Mr. Putin moved to Moscow where he joined the Kremlin as an administrator. He captured the world’s attention in 1998 when President Boris Yeltsin appointed him as director of the Federal Security Service (FSB), the successor of the KGB. He never had to turn back.

Russia was in a bad shape. Its economy was in shambles. It was not in a position to challenge NATO, which had revived talks of expanding to Eastern Europe. In Chechnya, a separatist war was raging. Yeltsin, the vodka-drinking, aloof leader who was struggling to deal with the many challenges his big but weak country was facing, started looking at Mr. Putin, the young spymaster, as his successor. In 1999, he appointed Mr. Putin as Prime Minister. When Mr. Yeltsin stepped down, Mr. Putin became acting President. And in 2000, he began his first term after the presidential elections.

Great power rivalry

During the early years of Mr. Putin’s presidency, Russia’s ties with the West were relatively cordial. Russia was taken into the G7 industrialised economies in 1997. Mr. Putin supported the U.S.’s war on terror after the September 11 terrorist attack. In 2001, President George W. Bush said Mr. Putin was “very straightforward and trustworthy”. “We had a very good dialogue. I was able to get a sense of his soul; a man deeply committed to his country and the best interests of his country,” Mr. Bush said. But the larger factors of great power rivalry would soon take over the post-Soviet tendencies of bonhomie. When the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003, Russia took a strong position against it. This was also a period when Russia, under Mr. Putin’s leadership, was rebuilding its economy and military might. A year after the Iraq invasion, NATO expanded further to the east, this time taking the three Baltic countries — Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, all sharing borders with Russia — and four others in Eastern Europe into its fold.

Watch | Two years of Russia-Ukraine war: How Russia and the world are changing

Mr. Putin’s later remarks would show how he looked at the U.S.-led global order. In a February 2007 speech given at the Munich Security Conference (a speech which is still seen by many as Mr. Putin’s foreign policy blueprint), the Russian leader slammed what he called the U.S.’s “monopolistic dominance” over the global order. “One single centre of power. One single centre of force. One single centre of decision making. This is the world of one master, one sovereign…. Primarily the United States has overstepped its national borders, and in every area,” he said.

Having silently accepted NATO’s expansion in the past, a more confident and militaristic Russia appeared to have drawn a red line on Georgia and Ukraine, both Black Sea basin countries that share borders with Russia. In 2008, the year Georgia and Ukraine were offered membership by NATO at its Bucharest summit, Mr. Putin sent troops to Georgia in the name of defending the two breakaway republics — South Ossetia and Abkhazia — which practically ended Tbilisi’s NATO dream. In 2014, immediately after the elected Ukrainian government of President Viktor Yanukovych was toppled by West-backed protests, Russia annexed Crimea, the peninsula that hosts Russia’s Black Sea fleet. Mr. Putin also offered military and financial aid to separatists in the Russian-speaking territories of Eastern Ukraine, which rose against the post-Yanukovych regime in Kyiv.

The conflict that began in 2014 snowballed into a full-scale war between Russia and Ukraine on February 24, 2022, when Mr. Putin ordered his “special military operation”. The war placed Russia on course with prolonged conflict with the West. But Mr. Putin looked at it differently. “He has three advisers,” Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told an oligarch after the war began, according to an FT report. “Ivan the Terrible. Peter the Great. And Catherine the Great.”

Tight grip

Domestically, Mr. Putin has tightened his control on the Russian state over the years. He stepped down as President in 2008 as he was constitutionally barred from a third consecutive term but became Prime Minister under President Dmitry Medvedev. Four years later, Mr. Putin returned as President. This time, he got the Constitution amended that allowed him to stand in Presidential elections again. Alexei Navalny, his most vocal opposition leader who survived an assassination attempt in August 2020, died in a prison in February. Boris Nemtsov, another opposition politician, was shot dead in Moscow in February 2015. The Kremlin-tolerated opposition parties, including the Communist Party, do not pose any organisational or ideological challenge to Mr. Putin’s hold on power.


EDITORIAL | Death of dissent: On Putin’s Russia today

In the state he rebuilt, Orthodox Christianity holds a prominent place. He is fighting not just a military conflict with the West, but also a culture war between “civilisations”. He is the new patriarch of “mother Russia”, not just the President of a modern republic. This mix of populism, civilisational nationalism, cultural roots and militarism kept him popular in Russia. According to Levada Centre, Mr. Putin’s approval rating stayed at 86% in February 2024, while 12% disapproved of his performance. Levada’s polls show that Mr. Putin’s popularity has never dipped below 59% since he became President. He has mastered a complex model, with regular elections, that allowed him to retain total dominance on Russian politics, while keeping dissent and political opposition under check, something which British historian Perry Anderson calls ‘a managed democracy’. At the same time, he constantly pushed to expand Russian influence abroad, challenging the West.

This model of dominance at home and counterbalance abroad faces a tough test when Mr. Putin is assuming another term. The Ukraine war is grinding on in its third year with no end in sight. Russia, which suffered some setbacks in the early stage of the war, seems to have captured battlefield momentum, for now. But the country is also paying a big price. It lost tens of thousands of soldiers. It is struggling to offset the impact of the sanctions the West has imposed. Its ties with Europe, which Mr. Putin rebuilt painstakingly in his early years of power, lies in tatters, forcing the country to pivot to Asia. NATO further expanded towards Russia’s border after the war began, with Sweden and Finland being the latest members.

At home, there are signs that his regime is ageing, which were evident in the rebellion of Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of private military company Wagner, or silent protests in Russia, including on the election day. But Mr. Putin seems confident and unfazed. In his victory speech on Sunday, Mr. Putin declared that he will stay the course. “We have many tasks ahead. But when we are consolidated — no matter who wants to intimidate us, suppress us — nobody has ever succeeded in history, they have not succeeded now, and they will not succeed ever in the future,” said the Russian leader to cheering supporters, who chanted “Putin, Putin… Russia, Russia”.

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Who are other Russian dissidents besides the late Alexei Navalny?

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The sudden death of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s most formidable antagonist has left an open wound in Russia’s political opposition.

Alexei Navalny, 47, was the Kremlin’s best-known critic at home and abroad. Before he died in a penal colony Friday, the anti-corruption crusader, protest organiser and politician with an arch sense of humour became the subject of an award-winning documentary. His channels on YouTube had millions of subscribers.

Navalny also was the first opposition leader in Russia to receive a lengthy prison sentence in recent years. There would be others, heralding a crackdown on dissent that became more punishing with the invasion of Ukraine. In the three years since Navalny lost his freedom, multiple prominent dissidents were imprisoned, while others fled Russia under pressure.

Many of them nevertheless persisted in challenging Mr. Putin — organising abroad, pushing for sanctions on Russia, supporting like-minded Russians in exile or continuing to speak out from behind bars.

These are some of the key remaining figures:

Navalny’s core team

Russian opposition activist Alexei Navalny’s spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh. Most Russian opposition figures are currently either in prison or in exile abroad. File
| Photo Credit:
AP

Colleagues at the Anti-Corruption Foundation, which Navalny founded in 2011 to expose political corruption, and his other close associates often had to work without him. Even before he was imprisoned in January 2021, Navalny was subject to regular arrests and long jail stints.

In 2020, he was poisoned with a nerve agent, spent 18 days in a coma and recuperated in Germany for weeks. His prison term included more than 300 days in isolation, with communication possible but difficult from a punishment cell.

His closest associates — top strategist Leonid Volkov, head of investigations Maria Pevchikh, foundation director Ivan Zhdanov and spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh — also faced unrelenting pressure and prosecution in Russia. In recent years, all left the country and worked from abroad, providing political commentary and the foundation’s signature YouTube exposes of political corruption.

They kept pushing for Navalny’s release from prison, organised protests and mounted a campaign to undermine Mr. Putin’s image in Russia ahead of a presidential election he is almost certain to win next month.

“Alexei was awesome,” Mr. Volkov wrote Sunday on X, formerly Twitter. “He was a natural politician, very talented, very efficient. And from himself and from everyone around him, he demanded one thing: not to throw in the towel, not to give up, not to despair. … This is what he wants from us now. His life’s work must prevail.”

Mikhail Khodorkovsky

Exiled Russian businessman and opposition figure Mikhail Khodorkovsky poses during an interview in London. Mr. Khodorkovsky, who now lives in London, is one of several Russian opposition politicians trying to build a coalition with grassroots anti-war groups across the world and exiled Russian opposition figures. File

Exiled Russian businessman and opposition figure Mikhail Khodorkovsky poses during an interview in London. Mr. Khodorkovsky, who now lives in London, is one of several Russian opposition politicians trying to build a coalition with grassroots anti-war groups across the world and exiled Russian opposition figures. File
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AP

Mikhail Khodorkovsky, 60, is a former tycoon turned Russian opposition figure in exile. Mr. Khodorkovsky spent a decade in prison in Russia on charges widely seen as political revenge for challenging Mr. Putin’s rule in the early 2000s. He was released in 2013, shortly before Russia hosted the 2014 Winter Olympics in the Black Sea resort of Sochi. A surprise pardon from Mr. Putin on the eve of the Olympics was widely seen as an effort by the Kremlin to improve Russia’s image in the West.

Mr. Khodorkovsky was flown to Germany and later settled in London. From exile, he launched Open Russia, an opposition group that ran its own news outlet, supported candidates in various elections, provided legal aid to defendants facing politically motivated prosecutions and had an educational platform.

Open Russia and its activists the country faced constant pressure from the authorities; some were prosecuted in Russia, and one of its leaders, Andrei Pivovarov, is currently serving a four-year prison term.

The group eventually shut down, but Mr. Khodorkovsky continued his vocal criticism of the Kremlin. After Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine two years ago this week, he and other prominent Putin critics, including chess legend Garry Kasparov and former lawmaker Dmitry Gudkov, formed the Antiwar Committee, a broad opposition alliance that opposes the invasion and seeks to undermine Mr. Putin.

Vladimir Kara-Murza

Russian opposition activist Vladimir Kara-Murza gestures standing in a glass cage in a courtroom. File

Russian opposition activist Vladimir Kara-Murza gestures standing in a glass cage in a courtroom. File
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AP

Once a journalist and now a prominent opposition politician, Vladimir Kara-Murza, 42, received the longest single sentence handed to a Kremlin critic in Mr. Putin’s Russia — 25 years on charges of treason. He is serving the sentence in a Siberian penal colony and has been repeatedly placed in solitary confinement.

Mr. Kara-Murza was an associate of Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, another fierce Putin critic who was assassinated near the Kremlin in 2015. A few years before that, Mr. Kara-Murza and Mr. Nemtsov lobbied for passage of the Magnitsky Act in the U.S. The law was a response to the prison death of Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who had exposed a tax fraud scheme. It authorised Washington to impose sanctions on Russians deemed to be human rights violators.

Mr. Kara-Murza survived what he believes were attempts to poison him in 2015 and 2017 but kept returning to Russia despite concerns that it might be unsafe for him to do so. Since his April 2022 arrest, he has continued to speak out against Mr. Putin and the war in Ukraine in multiple opinion columns and letters written from behind bars. His wife, Yevgenia, has also actively campaigned to secure freedom for him and other jailed Kremlin critics.

Ilya Yashin

Russian opposition activist and former municipal deputy of the Krasnoselsky district Ilya Yashin gestures, smiling. File

Russian opposition activist and former municipal deputy of the Krasnoselsky district Ilya Yashin gestures, smiling. File
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AP

Ilya Yashin, 40, refused to leave Russia despite the unprecedented pressure authorities applied to stifle dissent. He said that getting out of the country would undermine his value as a politician.

Mr. Yashin, an uncompromising member of a Moscow municipal council, was a vocal ally of Navalny’s. He eventually was arrested in June 2022 and later sentenced to 8 1/2 years in prison for “spreading false information” about the Russian military, a criminal offence since March 2022.

The harsh sentence didn’t silence his sharp criticism of the Kremlin. Mr. Yashin’s associates regularly update his social media pages with messages he relays from prison. His YouTube channel has over 1.5 million subscribers. In a prison interview with AP in September 2022, Mr. Yashin urged ordinary Russians to help spread the word, too.

“Demand for an alternative point of view has appeared in society,” Mr. Yashin told the AP in written answers from behind bars.

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Jailed Russian opposition leader Navalny reported dead; Western leaders blame Kremlin

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Alexei Navalny, Russia’s most famous opposition leader, died on February 16 after collapsing and losing consciousness at the penal colony north of the Arctic Circle where he was serving a long jail term, the Russian prison service said.

Navalny, 47, rose to prominence more than a decade ago by lampooning President Vladimir Putin and the Russian elite whom he accused of vast corruption, avarice and opulence.

The Federal Penitentiary Service of the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District said in a statement that Navalny “felt unwell” after a walk at the IK-3 penal colony in Kharp, about 1,900 km (1,200 miles) north east of Moscow. He lost consciousness almost immediately, it said.

“All necessary resuscitation measures were carried out, which did not yield positive results. Doctors of the ambulance stated the death of the convict,” the prison service said, adding that causes of death were being established.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his associates will not go unpunished if the death of Alexei Navalny, as reported by Russian officials, turns out to be true, the Kremlin critic’s wife, Yulia, said. Yulia Navalny called upon the international community to come together and fight against the “horrific regime” in Russia, in a statement at the Munich Security Conference, speaking in Russian via an interpreter.  Navalny’s mother was quoted by Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta as saying that her son had been “alive, healthy and happy” when she last saw him on February 12. Novaya Gazeta reported that Lyudmila Navalnaya wrote in a Facebook post on Friday: “I don’t want to hear any condolences. We saw him in prison on the [Feb] 12, in a meeting. He was alive, healthy and happy.” 

Mr. Putin has been told about Navalny’s death, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. Mr. Putin, who is running for re-election in a month, was shown on a television clip visiting a factory in the Urals.

Meanwhile, the press secretary of Navalny said on the X social media platform on Friday that she was unable to confirm his death, which was reported by the country’s prison service earlier.

Kira Yarmysh said that Navalny’s lawyer was travelling to the site of the prison where he had been serving his sentence.

The former head of Navalny’s political organisation Leonid Volkov alleged that if it were true that he is dead, then Russian President Vladimir Putin killed him.

Mr. Volkov wrote on X: “We have no basis to believe state propaganda. If it’s true, then it’s not ‘Navalny died’, but only that ‘Putin killed him’. But I don’t believe them for a second.” 

‘Russia responsible for Navalny’s death’: World leaders react

Western governments and Russian opposition figures said the Kremlin was responsible for Navalny’s death.

 The White House said the death, if confirmed, would be “a terrible tragedy.” Speaking on NPR, White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan also added the Kremlin’s “long and sordid” history of harming its opponents “raises real and obvious questions about what happened here.” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that the reports underscore what he described as the “weakness and rot” of the system President Vladimir Putin built. “First and foremost, if these reports are accurate, our hearts go out to his wife and his family,” Mr. Blinken said in Munich.

“Beyond that, his death in a Russian prison and the fixation and fear of one man only underscores the weakness and rot at the heart of the system that Putin has built. Russia is responsible for this,” Mr. Blinken added.

“We’ll be talking to the many other countries concerned about Alexei Navalny, especially if these reports bear out to be true,” Blinken said.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said news of Alexei Navalny’s death was terrible. “This is terrible news. As the fiercest advocate for Russian democracy, Alexei Navalny demonstrated incredible courage throughout his life,” Sunak said in a post on X, formerly Twitter. “My thoughts are with his wife and the people of Russia, for whom this is a huge tragedy,” he added.

The European Union said held President Vladimir Putin’s Russia solely responsible for the death. “Alexei Navalny fought for the values of freedom and democracy. For his ideals, he made the ultimate sacrifice,” European Council President Charles Michel posted on X. “The EU holds the Russian regime for sole responsible for this tragic death.”

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said he was “deeply saddened and disturbed” by the reports. “We need to establish all the facts, and Russia needs to answer all the serious questions about the circumstances of his death,” Mr. Stoltenberg said. 

 Navalny has paid with his life for his ‘resistance to a system of oppression’, French Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne said in comments on the death of the famous Russian political activist. “His death in a penal colony reminds us of the reality of Vladimir Putin’s regime”, said Sejourne.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni called the news “disturbing”, adding that it served as a warning to the rest of the world. “We express our heartfelt condolences and hope that full clarity will be revealed over this disturbing event,” Ms. Meloni said in a statement. 

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said he was “very sad” about reports, adding that it was a “terrible” sign of how Russia as a country had changed in recent years. 

 Latvian President Edgars Rinkevics said on X on Friday that Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was “brutally murdered by the Kremlin”. “Whatever your thoughts about Alexei Navalny as the politician, he was just brutally murdered by the Kremlin. That’s a fact and that is something one should know about the true nature of Russia’s current regime. My condolences to the family and friends,” he wrote.

Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares demanded a “clarification of the circumstances” of the death of Alexei Navalny in prison. “Deeply shocked by the death of Alexei Navalny. We demand clarification of the circumstances of his death, which occurred during his unjust imprisonment for political reasons,” Albares wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that what she called Western accusations about the death of jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny were “self-revealing”.

In a statement posted on the messenger app Telegram, Ms. Zakharova said that forensic results on Navalny’s death were still unavailable but that the West had already reached its own conclusions. Ms. Zakharova did not clarify which accusations she was referring to.

Biden says Putin responsible for on Navalny’s death

U.S. President Joe Biden said he was “not surprised” but “outraged” after the reported death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny. “He bravely stood up to the corruption, the violence and all the bad things the Putin government was doing,” Biden said at the White House of Russian President Vladimir Putin. “Putin is responsible for Navalny’s death.”

God bless Alexei Navalny, his courage will not be forgotten’

Biden adds that this is the time for “greater unity” among Nato allies to stand against Vladimir Putin, in spite of the Russian president’s “desperate attempts to stamp out any oppositon”.

The White House was seeking more information about Navalny’s death at a Russian penal colony north of the Arctic Circle, where he was dispatched less than two months ago.

Opposition leader

Navalny’s exposes, posted on his YouTube channel racked up millions of views and brought tens of thousands of Russians to the streets, despite Russia’s harsh anti-protests laws.

He was jailed in early 2021 after returning to Russia from Germany, where he was recuperating from a near-fatal poisoning attack with Novichok, a Soviet-era nerve agent.

Editorial | Poison and prison: On political importance of Navalny

In a string of cases he was sentenced to 19 years in prison on charges widely condemned by independent rights groups and in the West as retribution for his opposition to the Kremlin.

His return to Russia despite facing jail put him on a collision course with Putin, after Navalny blamed the poisoning attack in Siberia on the Kremlin.

“I’m not afraid and I call on you not to be afraid,” he said in an appeal to supporters as he landed in Moscow, moments before being detained on charges linked to an old fraud conviction.

His 2021 arrest spurred some of the largest demonstrations Russia had seen in decades, and thousands were detained at rallies nationwide calling for his release.

In prison, Navalny’s team said he had been harassed and repeatedly moved to a punitive solitary confinement cell.

He said guards had subjected him and other inmates to “torture by Putin”, making them listen to the President’s speeches.

From behind bars he was a staunch opponent of Moscow’s full-scale military offensive against Ukraine.

The Kremlin moved to dismantle his organisation, locking up his allies and sending dozens of others into exile.

Late last year he was moved to a remote Arctic prison colony in Russia’s Yamalo-Nenets region in northern Siberia.

The last post on Navalny’s Telegram channel, which he managed through his lawyers and team in exile, was a tribute to his wife, Yulia Navalnaya, posted on Valentine’s Day.



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Yevgeny Prigozhin | The Wagner chief killed in a plane crash

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Who was Yevgeny Prigozhin?

On September 14, 2022, a few days after Russian troops were forced to withdraw from Kharkiv by a Ukrainian counter-offensive, a video of a man talking to inmates at a Russian prison emerged on the Internet. “I am a representative of a private military company. You have probably heard of it. It’s called PMC Wagner,” said the tall man with a shaved head to a group of prisoners and guards who were standing around him in a semicircle. The video shot with a low-quality mobile camera, was published by the team of Alexei Navalny, a jailed opposition leader. The man in the video was Yevgeny Prigozhin, a Russian tycoon with close ties with the Kremlin. His mission: recruit prisoners for Wagner to fight in Ukraine.

Explained | Russia’s withdrawal from Kherson

In the video, he said that if the inmates, aged between 22 and 50, agreed to join Wagner, he would give them freedom after six months of service or a hero’s burial if they died in combat. “Do you have anyone who can take you out of prison,” he asked the prisoners. “There are two others who can — Allah and God — but they only take you out in a wooden box. I can take you out of here alive.”

When Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Prigozhin was one of the most powerful men in the country. He had the blessings of the Kremlin. He recruited prisoners and his troops were instrumental in seizing several Ukrainian regions, including Bakhmut, Russia’s only significant territorial gain this year. Yet, Prigozhin fell out with Russia’s elite. Earlier in the year, he said the war, in which the Russians suffered huge casualties, could have been avoided. He called Russia’s Defence Ministry leadership corrupt and incompetent. The crisis within Russia’s military complex erupted into an unprecedented mutiny on June 23-24 when Wagner troops launched a march towards Moscow and shot down Russian helicopters. Then, Mr. Putin struck a deal with Prigozhin to avoid bloodshed. Exactly 18 months after the war began, Prigozhin is now a dead man. He was killed in a plane crash northwest of Moscow, according to Russian authorities.

The hotdog seller of St. Petersburg

Prigozhin’s rise and fall were closely linked to Mr. Putin.

Born in 1961 in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), the former Tsarist capital, Prigozhin grew up in Khrushchev’s Soviet Union. At a young age, he was arrested for robbery. According to court papers released by Russian media outlet Meduza, Prigozhin and his accomplices attacked a woman in March 1980 in St. Petersburg, took her gold earrings and left her lying on the street unconscious. There were other reported similar incidents. He was convicted and jailed in 1981 in Brezhnev’s Soviet Union. When he was released in 1990, the Soviet Union, under the leadership of Mikhail Gorbachev, was already on its deathbed.

Prigozhin started a new life, like the post-Soviet Russia, selling hotdogs in St. Petersburg. The subsequent years would see him steadily expanding his business to supermarkets and restaurants. By the mid-1990s, he opened Old Customs House (Staraya Tamozhnya), on Vasilevsky Island of St. Petersburg. It would soon become one of the finest and most sought-after dining locations in the city. Influential people, including celebrities, billionaires and politicians, used to visit the restaurant. One of them was Anatoly Sobchak, the Mayor of St. Petersburg. Sometimes, Sobchak’s young deputy would accompany him to the diner — a former KGB operative, who just started building a political career, called Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin.

Also Read | Putin’s inner circle: All the President’s men 

Putin’s chef

The relationship between Mr. Putin and Prigozhin, probably established in one of those meetings, would flourish in the following years. By late 1990s, Mr. Putin would become President Boris Yeltsin’s Prime Minister, and then his successor. With Mr. Putin in the Kremlin, Prigozhin would go on winning lucrative government catering contracts. His business started booming, so did his influence. As a measure of his growing clout, he was occasionally seen with President Putin and global leaders. He accompanied Mr. Putin when he visited the U.K. in 2003 and appeared in a photograph with Mr. Putin and Prince Charles (now the King of the U.K.). When Mr. Putin hosted George W. Bush in 2006 as part of the G8 Summit, Prigozhin can be seen serving the U.S. leader. In a 2015 photograph released by the Kremlin, Prigozhin can be seen serving food to Mr. Putin, then Brazil President Dilma Rouseff and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. This closeness to Mr. Putin and his ever-expanding catering business earned him the nickname, “Putin’s chef”.

Prigozhin’s transformation from an influential Kremlin contractor to a vital player in Russia’s security complex began in 2014, the year Russia annexed Crimea and started supporting separatists in Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine’s civil war. Wagner was founded in the same year, by Dmitry Utkin, a former Lieutenant Colonel in Russia’s military intelligence service, the GRU. (Utkin is also believed to be dead in the plane crash). Prigozhin emerged as the main financier of the group. According to one account, he approached the Defence Ministry in 2014, seeking land to train “volunteers”. Ministry officials were not happy with his demand. Then he told them, “The orders came from Papa,” referring to Mr. Putin.

He got what he wanted and Wagner would train thousands of private soldiers, who would be deployed to Crimea and eastern Ukraine. Initially, the Kremlin denied that it had sent troops to Ukraine — it was technically right as Wagner was not officially part of the Russian defence forces. But there were “little green men” across Ukraine’s Donbas. Within a few years, Wagner became an all-powerful mercenary entity. Mr. Putin’s critics saw Prigozhin as one of their formidable rivals. According to Leonid Volkov, a close aide of Navalny, Prigozhin was “the most dangerous criminal in Putin’s entourage”. A Belling Cat investigation in August 2020 claimed that Prigozhin’s business ventures — government contracts, Wagner and troll farms — were closely linked to the Kremlin. Robert Muller, the Special Counsel who probed alleged Russian intervention in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, indicted Russia-based Internet Research Agency, which was linked to Prigozhin, for running an online campaign to discredit Hillary Clinton’s candidacy. He was also wanted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for “conspiracy to defraud the United States”. In 2021, the FBI declared a reward of up to “$250,000 for information leading to the arrest” of Prigozhin.

Fall from grace

When Russia adopted a more aggressive foreign policy, expanding its strategic footprint in West Asia and Africa, Wagner came handy for the Kremlin — it can send troops to these regions with plausible deniability. In 2015, Mr. Putin sent troops to Syria to back the regime of President Bashar al-Assad in the civil war. Wagner soldiers fought alongside Syrian troops and Hezbollah and other Shia paramilitaries against the regime’s rivals. They were also sent to Mali, Libya, Mozambique and the Central African Republic. When Wagner became an integral part of the Kremlin’s foreign security outreach, Prigozhin’s stock rose in Moscow’s fortified elite power circles. But his fall from grace was swifter.

The irony is that the same Ukraine war, which initially turned him into one of the most important players in Russia, also spelt doom for his stature. When Russian troops performed poorly in the war, Prigozhin publicly slammed the defence establishment and asked for the ouster of Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov. Mr. Putin seemed to have tolerated the tensions initially but he was not going to publicly back a private military company owner over his defence establishment. That’s where Prigozhin erred. Mr. Putin’s decision in January to replace Gen. Sergey Surovikin, who was close to Wagner and Prigozhin, with Gen. Gerasimov, the man Prigozhin wanted to be sacked, as the commander of the Ukraine operations was a clear signal on where the Kremlin was standing on the matter. But Prigozhin continued his attacks against the defence brass. When the Defence Ministry, with Mr. Putin’s blessings, moved on to integrate Wagner into the regular Russian army, soon after Bakhmut was captured, Prigozhin launched his mutiny. His fate was sealed on that day.

Wagner’s mutiny had exposed the weak links of Mr. Putin’s regime. His authority was challenged in the streets with weapons at a time when his troops were fighting a prolonged war against Ukraine’s West-backed forces. It was a twin challenge. The day August 23, exactly two months since the Wagner mutiny, saw dramatic developments in Russia. In the morning, the Defence Ministry announced that Gen. Surovkin, who has gone missing since the mutiny, has been sacked. Later in the day, the plane carrying Prigozhin and reportedly Utkin, crashed, killing all passengers. These developments strengthen Mr. Putin’s standing, at least in domestic politics.

Explained | Understanding the Wagner mutiny 

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Russia-Ukraine war | What to expect from peace talks in Saudi Arabia?

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The story so far: Saudi Arabia is set to host Ukraine, the U.S., some European countries and major developing countries including India and Brazil for peace talks on the Russia-Ukraine war on August 5 and 6 in the Red Sea port city of Jeddah. The development was first reported by the Wall Street Journal earlier this week, noting that top officials from up to 30 countries, excluding Russia, had been invited for the talks where Ukraine is seeking to garner support for its 10-point peace plan proposed last year.

Has the time for effective peace negotiations on Russia-Ukraine come?

While Russia has shown no signs of retreating from the frontlines in its now 17-month-old military operation against neighbour Ukraine, the latter also seems keen on fighting it out on the battlefield on the back of its retaking of the key cities Kherson and Kharkiv last fall. It also has its military position currently strengthened by the billions of dollars worth of arms and equipment flowing in from Europe and the U.S., where President Joe Biden reiterated last month that he would provide Ukraine with defence funding for “as long as it takes”.

Notably, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in May that he did not think peace negotiations in the Ukraine war were “possible at this stage”, when both sides were “convinced that they can win”. Analysts, too, are near unanimous in saying that they do not envision effective peace talks that could end the conflict in the near future.

While both Ukraine and Russia have signalled their openness to talk on global platforms, they squarely reject what peace would look like for the other. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy continues to hold his position that peace negotiations cannot happen without the withdrawal of Russian troops and that Ukraine should be in the driver’s seat and define its own terms of peace. The 10-point peace plan that Mr. Zelenskyy is promoting since last year’s G-20 Summit — involves the withdrawal of Russian troops and restoring Ukraine’s territorial integrity as per its 1991 borders post the breakdown of the Soviet Union and reaffirming it according to the UN Charter, besides prosecuting war crimes committed by Russia. Russia, which has rejected the plan and is unwilling to cede any of the captured territory in Ukraine has said, meanwhile, that any negotiation should happen factoring in “new realities”, indicating redrawn borders including the territories it has annexed.

Status of the Russia-Ukraine war into 500 days of the conflict. Information source: OHCHR, UN, UNHCR, World Bank, Pentagon papers
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Graphic by Graphic News

In a bid to placate countries that have not imposed sanctions against it and continue to be non-aligned trade partners, Moscow has publically shown willingness to come to the negotiating table, putting the blame on Ukraine for the continuing conflict. Russian President Vladimir Putin said in December 2022, that was “ready to negotiate with everyone involved” on an acceptable solution, it was Kyiv that was was “refusing” to talk.

A January paper by the RAND Corporation on the trajectory of the current conflict outlines impediments that have historically made ending wars difficult, which indicate why the possibility of real peace negotiations may not be so close. First is when both states disagree about their prospects for victory. While Ukraine remains optimistic about its counteroffensives banking on the West’s support, Mr. Putin continues his fight with a fifth of Ukranian territory captured and a future mobilisation looming as he remains largely unopposed back home.

Analysts also point out other hindrances to current peace negotiations; while some countries have suggested a ceasefire, Ukraine does not trust Russia to uphold it, also believing that any break from the battlefield would give Russia time to recoup and come back it more force. Before any sort of negotiated end to the conflict, Ukraine is also demanding a long-term security plan from the West or NATO, keeping in mind that Russia would continue to be its neighbour, while the latter’s rationale behind launching the offensive was the extension of military alliances in its neighbourhood.

What kind of negotiations have taken place so far?

In the initial weeks of the conflict which started in February last year, the two parties engaged in talks for temporary ceasefires for creating humanitarian corridors. Direct negotiations on peace (which first happened in Belarus and Turkey) between the two have not happened since May last year, where the prospect of Ukraine never seeking NATO membership was discussed. Talks broke down as evidence of war atrocities in Ukraine and Russian attacks on civilians began to mount. Since then, the International Criminal Court at the Hague has issued an arrest warrant against Mr. Putin.

Besides, Russia, recently pulled out of the Black Sea Grain Deal brokered by Turkey and the UN after a year. The deal, which allowed the movement of 32.9 million metric tonnes of foodgrains from Ukraine through a safe corridor, was the one negotiation which was seen as fairly effective, even though a sizeable portion of grains were shipped to China and high-income countries.

Since last year, however, multiple countries and blocs have shown willingness to become mediators between the two parties, offering their own roadmaps for peace. While no plan has yet been accepted by both Russia and Ukraine, it has highlighted strategic attempts at mediation by influential players in other parts of the globe as the West’s current position remains that of supporting Kyiv militarily.

What is the peace plan proposed by China?

In February this year, China came out with a 12-point plan for the “political settlement of the Ukraine crisis”. While the Chinese Foreign Ministry promoted it as the launch of a peace initiative by Beijing, it was seen as an attempt to placate criticism of its silence on Russia’s actions, as a repetition of its already expressed positions on the war and as skewed in favour of Moscow. While Kyiv outrightly rejected the proposal, Russia has said that it could serve as a “basis for the basis of some processes aimed at the search for peace”, but had some provisions, like a ceasefire, that were “impossible” to implement.

The plan reiterated China’s support for territorial integrity of states and the UN Charter, condemned using of nuclear power in wars, and called for the ceasing of hostilities and resumption of talks. However, it also called for “abandoning cold war mentality”, adding that security should not be achieved by expanding military alliances, pointing towards NATO and the West. The plan was seen favouring Russia as it also called for countries to stop “abusing” unilateral sanctions.

A March paper by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace notes that the vague nature of China’s plan reflects its varied interest. First, Beijing squarely expressed support for territorial integrity factoring in its position on Taiwan and other border issues with countries like India. Besides its strategic and economic ties with Russia, Beijing has also been a beneficiary of the conflict as Russia is once again seen as its junior power, relying on it for diplomatic support in the face of the West and for helping its economy by buying goods amid Western sanctions. China’s position paper was also seen as an attempt to position itself as a responsible power in the Global South and the UN security council, as the only member who worked on initiating a peace process.

What about the peace initiatives proposed by Africa and others?

In June, leaders of seven African countries, led by South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, visited Russia and Ukraine with a 10-point proposal which suggested the recognition of Russia and Ukraine’s sovereignty, and the release of prisoners. It also called for keeping the exports of foodgrains unhindered; for a de-escalation of fighting, and for peace negotiations between the two sides to start at the earliest.

Notably, the war has meant rising inflation and a shortage of grain and fertilizers for many countries in the African continent, which import these products from Ukraine and Russia respectively. As per the African Development Bank, the conflict is directly responsible for a shortage of about 30 million tonnes of grain in Africa. The plan was also seen as an attempt at peace by African countries who have not outrightly condemned Russia and abstained from UN resolutions against it.

Meanwhile, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva earlier suggested that he could lead a “peace club” of countries who are not involved in the war and are militarily non-aligned, to broker discussions between the two sides. The leader, whose efforts were seen as an attempt to bring Brazil back to global relevance after the divisive Jair Bolsonaro regime, drew criticism from Ukraine and the West, as he also suggested that the West was prolonging the conflict by supplying arms to Kyiv. He suggested earlier that the decision to start war was “made by two countries,” appearing to place some blame on Ukraine.

Indonesian Defence Minister Prabowo Subianto also proposed last month, a ceasefire “at present positions” and demilitarised zones that would be guaranteed by observers and United Nations peacekeeping forces. He also suggested an eventual “referendum in the disputed areas” organised by the UN. He drew criticism from the EU, which said that peace in the Ukraine conflict had to be “just”, and not a “peace of surrender”. 

What is known about the upcoming talks in Jeddah?

The United Kingdom, EU, South Africa, and Poland have already confirmed their attendance for the talks. The U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan is also likely to attend.

The head of Ukraine’s Presidential Office, Andriy Yermak said that Kyiv was trying to get as many countries involved in a meeting in Saudi Arabia about implementing Ukraine’s 10-point plan “to restore lasting and just peace”. Russia, which had rejected the plan, does not appear to be among those invited to the Jeddah talks. Kremlin Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that Russia would follow the meeting closely to understand its goals, adding that any attempt to promote a “peaceful settlement deserves a positive evaluation”. He added, however, that Kyiv did not want peace if it was being “used exclusively as a too in the war of the collective West with Russia”.

While observers are not expecting an overall breakthrough from the talks when it comes to achieving peace in protracted conflict, it is being seen as a constructive way of promoting third-party mediation by players apart from the West, and of bringing to the table both the West non-aligned countries of the Global South, which have refused to isolate Russia. Notably, Saudi Arabia maintains close ties with Moscow and is a part of the influential oil cartel OPEC+. It has also drawn criticism for cutting oil outputs and driving out prices at a time when supplies from Russia face sanctions.

The New York Times pointed out that Saudi Arabia’s decision to host the talks also appears to be a part of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s posturing as a global leader who can wield influence beyond his region. Last year, Saudi Arabia helped broker the return of 10 foreign nationals captured by Russia.

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Russia targets Ukraine’s port of Odesa and calls it payback for a strike on a key bridge to Crimea

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Ukraine said its forces shot down Russian drones and cruise missiles targeting the Black Sea port of Odesa before dawn on Tuesday in what Moscow called “retribution” for an attack that damaged a crucial bridge to the Crimean Peninsula.

The Russians first sought to wear down Ukraine’s air defences by firing 25 exploding drones and then targeted Odesa with six Kalibr cruise missiles, the Ukrainian military’s Southern Command said.

All six missiles and the drones were shot down by air defences in the Odesa region and other areas in the south, officials said, though their debris and shock waves damaged some port facilities and a few residential buildings and injured an elderly man at his home.

The Russian Defence Ministry said its “strike of retribution” was carried out with sea-launched precision weapons on Ukrainian military facilities near Odesa and Mykolaiv, a coastal city about 50 km to the northeast.

It destroyed facilities preparing “terror attacks” against Russia involving maritime drones, including a facility at a shipyard that was producing them, the Ministry said. It added that it also struck Ukrainian fuel depots near the two cities.

It was not possible to verify the conflicting claims by both countries.

Russian President Vladimir Putin blamed Ukraine on Monday for striking the Kerch Bridge, which links Russia with Crimea and was attacked in October 2022 and needed months of repairs. The bridge is a key supply route for the peninsula, which was illegally annexed by Moscow in 2014.

Ukrainian officials stopped short of directly taking responsibility, as they have done in similar strikes before, but Ukraine’s top security agency appeared tacitly to admit to a role.

Satellite images taken on Monday by Maxar Technologies showed serious damage to both eastbound and westbound lanes of the bridge across the Kerch Strait on the part nearest to the Russian mainland, with at least one section collapsed. The railroad bridge that runs parallel to the highway appeared undamaged.

The Russian military has sporadically hit Odesa and the neighboring region throughout the war, but Tuesday’s barrage was one of the biggest attacks on the area.

Ukrainian forces have been targeting Crimea with drones and other attacks. Kyiv has vowed to reclaim it from Russian control, arguing that the peninsula plays a key role in sustaining the Russian invasion and is a legitimate target.

The onslaught also came a day after Russia broke off a deal that had allowed Ukraine to ship vital grain supplies from Odesa during the war. Moscow said the decision was in the works long before the bridge attack.

Even so, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov alleged, without offering evidence, that the specific shipping lanes and routes used for the grain transport under the deal were abused by Ukraine.

“Our military has repeatedly said that Ukraine has used these grain corridors for military purposes,” Mr. Peskov told reporters.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said Ukraine will continue implementing the grain deal. Mr. Peskov warned that such action was risky because the region lies next to an area where there is fighting.

“If they try to do something without Russia, these risks must be taken into account,” Mr. Peskov told reporters.

Mr. Zelensky said grain exports by sea and port security topped the agenda of his meeting on Tuesday with senior military commanders and top government officials, adding that he received reports on logistics and protection of the coastal regions.

Andriy Yermak, the head of Ukraine’s presidential office, said Russia is endangering the lives of millions of people around the world who need Ukrainian grain exports. Hunger is a growing threat in Africa, the Middle East and Asia, and high food prices have pushed more people into poverty.


Also read: Why allowing Ukraine to ship grain during Russia’s war matters to the world

“The world must realise that the goal of the Russian Federation is hunger and killing people,” Mr. Yermak said. “They need waves of refugees. They want to weaken the West with this.”

The United Nations and Ukraine’s Western allies slammed Moscow for halting the Black Sea Grain Initiative, saying it put many lives in peril.

USAID is giving Ukraine a further $250 million to support its agricultural sector as its chief, Samantha Power, visited Odesa and chided Moscow for its stance.

“Russia’s disruption of maritime commerce since the beginning of its full-scale invasion, including blockading ports, delaying ship inspections, and, most recently, withdrawing from the Black Sea Grain Initiative, has severely choked the amount of grain Ukraine is able to provide to the world amid a global food crisis,” a USAID statement said.

The Kremlin said the agreement would be suspended until Moscow’s demands to lift restrictions on exports of Russian food and fertilizer to the world are met. Peskov on Tuesday reaffirmed an earlier Kremlin pledge to provide especially poor countries in Africa with grain for free, adding that the issue will be discussed at a Russia-Africa summit in St. Petersburg next week.

Meanwhile, the Russian Defense Ministry also said its forces had foiled a Ukrainian attack on Crimea using 28 drones.

The ministry said 17 of the attacking drones were shot down by air defenses and 11 others were jammed by electronic warfare means and crashed. It said there was no damage or casualties.

Also Tuesday, satellite photos from Planet Labs PBC analyzed by The Associated Press showed that a convoy of vehicles arrived at a once-abandoned military base in Belarus, which was offered to Russia’s private military contractor, Wagner. That followed a short-lived rebellion last month against the Russian Defense Ministry by Wagner’s chief, Yevgeny Prigozhin.

The photos, taken Monday, show a long line of vehicles coming off a highway into the base near the Belarusian town of Osipovichi, some 75 kilometers (45 miles) northwest of the capital, Minsk.

Belaruski Hajun, an activist group that monitors troops movements in Belarus, said a convoy of more than 100 vehicles with Russian flags and Wagner insignia entered the country, heading for the camp. The group said it was the third Wagner convoy to enter Belarus since last week.

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Days after the Wagner mutiny, the spectres of ‘Black Saturday’ continue to haunt Russians

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The dramatic events that unfolded in Russia over the weekend with an armed column of Wagner private military company marching towards Moscow have sent chills across the world — any radical challenge to Russia’s government of President Vladimir Putin could affect not just the lives of Russians, but also the stability of the world order, already pretty fragile.


Editorial | Rebellion in Russia: on the mutiny by Yevgeny Prigozhin of the Wagner private military company

The “march of justice”, as Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, a businessman and once President Putin’s trusted associate, called his rebellion, was unprecedented in Russia’s modern history but was very short-lived. Still it exposed cracks in the Russian statehood and society. 

While there were different narratives on the origins of Mr. Prigozhin’s move — political ambitions, strive for profits, a bid to challenge the current status quo, or an overreaching hand of the West — the key question yet to have a solid answer is whether the mutiny, and the way it was aborted, undermines the strength or Vladimir Putin or amplifies it. And, more important, whether it was the final act or just the beginning.

“This is not the end of the story, but the beginning. Military mutiny, even unsuccessful, is a harbinger. Key events (revolution, coup, civil war) unfold later, after some time lag. History has no formulas for the future, but such a scenario has some significant tradition (probability),” political scientist Kirill Rogov, founder of the Re: Russia, a discussion platform addressing key issues of Russian politics, economy and society, wrote on his Telegram channel. He pointed out that the mutiny marked a point where those people who took the oath and are ready to “serve the motherland” suddenly discovered a completely different understanding of where the “motherland” is.

Mr. Putin in his address to the nation on Saturday, while the mutiny was unfolding, made it clear: as the motherland is engaged in a “severe struggle for its future” which would decide the “the fate of our nation”, consolidation of all forces is required. He called actions that divide the country’s unity “a betrayal of our people and the comrades who are currently fighting on the front lines”, and compared the current situation with 1917 when, during the First World War, intrigues and disputes “behind the Army and the people turned into the greatest upheaval,” resulting in the collapse of the Army, the disintegration of the state, and a civil war.

Fear of bloodshed

The real-time footage shared by dozens of Russian Telegram channels on Saturday, in which residents are seen shaking hands, hugging and taking photos with Wagner fighters who took control of a regional military headquarters in Rostov-on-Don — a city of over 1 million close to the Ukraine border — must have sent shudders through the power elites.

Servicemen of the Wagner Group military company sit atop of a tank, as local civilians pose for a photo prior to their leave an area at the HQ of the Southern Military District in a street in Rostov-on-Don, Russia, on June 24, 2023.
| Photo Credit:
AP

As Russian political analysts note, many of the issues raised by Mr. Prigozhin — corruption, poor decision making resulting in high casualties on the frontline, or the idea of invading Ukraine itself — resonate with the common people. In an interview released hours before he announced his ‘march of justice’ towards Moscow, Mr. Prigozhin stated Russia had lost tens of thousands of troops, and accused Defence minister Sergei Shoigu of being the mastermind behind the invasion of Ukraine, driven by his personal ambition to enhance his own position.

Mr. Prigozhin also claimed that Mr. Shoigu was supported by oligarchs seeking to exploit Ukrainian resources. Such statements, like many others that Mr. Prigozhin has earlier made, could result in heavy prison terms (from 5 to 15 years) if those were made by ordinary Russians. 

However, a majority of Russians, who recall the events of 1991 (the disintegration of the Soviet Union) with great pain, irrespective of their political views, were rather alarmed at seeing their countrymen embracing Wagner fighters who shot down, as was later confirmed by the President, several helicopters and a military plane of the Russian armed forces, killing at least 13 people. The fear of bloodshed is extremely strong in the nation that has lived through many wars over the past 100 years. 

In the latest comment released by Mr. Prigozhin on Monday evening, he reiterated his claim that the decision to turn the military column around was made “to avoid bloodshed”, and he stressed several times that there was “no death” on the ground during a nearly 24-hour long march. In the same statement, Mr. Prigozhin, however, confirmed that Wagner shot down Russian Air Force aircraft, adding that it was for self-defence.

File picture of Russian President Vladimir Putin seen on monitors as he addressed the nation after Yevgeny Prigozhin called for armed rebellion on June 24, 2023

File picture of Russian President Vladimir Putin seen on monitors as he addressed the nation after Yevgeny Prigozhin called for armed rebellion on June 24, 2023
| Photo Credit:
AP

As Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko who on Tuesday unveiled the details of his mediation between Moscow and Wagner, said Kremlin had amassed some 10,000 troops to repel the Prigozhin-led march, which could have led to clashes and bloodshed. A peaceful solution was the priority, he added

‘Stop the columns’

No one in Russia’s power, business or military circles publicly supported Mr. Prigozhin’s rebellion. Hours after Wagner’s move towards Moscow was announced, Deputy Commander of the Russian Joint Forces, General Sergey Surovikin, whom Mr. Prigozhin was considered as being “close to”, and called on Wagner fighters to stop. “Before it’s too late, we need to obey the will and order of the popularly elected President of the Russian Federation, stop the columns, return them to their permanent locations,” he said, urging mercenaries not to “play into the enemy’s hands in these difficult times for our country.”

The deputy head of the GRU (the military intelligence service), Vladimir Alekseev, made a similar appeal, stating that Mr. Prigozhin’s actions as well as demands to replace the military leadership were “a stab in the back of the country and the President”. 

After Mr. Putin’s address on Saturday, Russian officials, including Governors of the regions, members of Parliament and other dignitaries, have published messages in support of the President and calling for unity of society. As Wagner fighters were leaving Rostov on Saturday night, the facade of Rostov city stadium was lit up with the colours of the Russian flag, and a line running: “We are all one nation, and we are fighting against a common external enemy. We believe in the Russian people and our President!”

System crisis

Political scientist Mikhail Vinogradov called June 24 “a moment of the most acute political crisis in the Russian realities of the 21st century”, adding that there was not a single institution that has acted honourably. “Everyone suffered reputational risks. At the end, the general feeling among all the parties is devastation. It is valid for those who saw the developments as a chance for change. And for those who were sincerely convinced that they were acting on behalf of the good and speaking on behalf of the ‘majority’.” 

Sergey Markedonov, a leading researcher at the MGIMO Institute of International Studies, Moscow, noted that “if we don’t continue to improve the quality of public administration in our country”, such tragedies as the events of June 24 will repeat. The ‘Black Saturday’, as he and many other commenters have labelled it, has not created political alternatives for Russia, but made them more visible. “It would be a big mistake to believe that changes in our country will occur in the spectrum of fluctuations between authoritarianism and democracy. The “transit” [of power] can also follow completely different trajectories,” he said. 

Anton Chekhov once defined Russia as a ‘bureaucratic country’, Mr. Markedonov recalled in a Telegram post. “And if that’s the case, then the quality of state governance is a crucial question for us… Therefore, strengthening the state, its de-privatisation (where necessary, especially in the security sector), becomes the most urgent task for the future. Only then does the illusory chance arise that a strong authority, in order to increase its own effectiveness, will demand high-quality independent expertise, a functioning ‘feedback loop,’ and self-purification from numerous ‘clots’”, he added.

Wagner’s future

In his latest address to the nation made on Monday night, Mr. Putin offered three choices to Wagner fighters: sign a contract with the Ministry of Defense, return home or move to neighbouring Belarus.

“The overwhelming majority of the fighters and commanders of the Wagner group are Russian patriots, devoted to their people and country. They proved this with their courage on the battlefield,” Mr. Putin said, thanking Wagner soldiers and commanders who “stopped at the last line” and didn’t allow the “fratricidal bloodshed” to take place.

On Tuesday morning, Russian state-owned news agencies reported, citing the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), that the case of armed mutiny against Mr. Prigozhin was dismissed on June 27. Mr. Prigozhin’s private jet was spotted landing at a military airfield near Minsk, early morning on Tuesday and later in the day, Mr. Lukashenko confirmed that the Wagner chief was in Belarus.

Independent media outlet Verstka, considered a “foreign agent’ by the Russian government, reported that camps were being built for Wagner forces in Belarus’s Osipovichi, Mogilev region (200 km from the border with Ukraine). The camps will accommodate up to 8,000 people (according to various estimates, 5,000-8,000 Wagner forces took part in the mutiny).

However, Mr. Lukashenko dismissed the reports, but added that he would assist with accommodation if necessary. “We don’t build any camps for now. But if they want, we will accommodate them. As far as I can see, they are looking at various territories. Feel free to set up tents. But for now, they are in their own camps in Lugansk,” the Belarus President was quoted as saying by the state Belta news agency.

Meanwhile, the Russian Defence ministry said Wagner PMC’s heavy weaponry will be transferred to the Russian armed forces.

Political analyst Alexey Makarkin, interviewed by Vedomosti newspaper, noted that while the ‘march of justice’ came as a surprise to the “system”, the Russian President’s speech sent an important signal to all its stakeholders. Now, any support for Mr. Prigozhin is categorically unacceptable, and the “former network of Prigozhin sympathizers” should now distance themselves from him. 

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