MNI POLITICAL RISK - Long-Term Risk To Putin Increases

With Yevgeny Prigozhin’s two-day Wagner Group rebellion against the Russian military establishment halted, there remains a lack of clarity on short-term implications for the war in Ukraine and the long-term implications for the regime of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

• The prevailing view is that the event has, to some extent, extinguished the idea that Putin has singular control over the Russia’s military apparatus, and the various proxies, like Prigozhin, he uses to diffuse power.
• It is unlikely that Prigozhin’s insurrection has fundamentally impacted the structures keeping Putin in power but the new reality that Putin does not control a monopoly of power within his own borders has raised the risk of further armed challenges to Putin's Kremlin.
• A significant shift in battlefield dynamics in Ukraine appears unlikely. Prigozhin’s Wagner Group was consistently touted as one of the most effective fighting forces of Russian military operation but Wagner's power within the Russian military ecosystem had been on the wane since a Pyrrhic victory at Bakhmut.
• MNI's Political Risk team presents analysis of the Wagner insurrection implications on Putin and Ukraine