This morning, Wagner mercenary fighters are steadily withdrawing from the Volga region after mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin agreed to back down from his armed insurrection. But for embattled Russian President Vladimir Putin, this crisis could have a lasting effect on his ability to lead Russia here with this right now, as Washington Post opinion columnist Max Boot, he has a new op ed this morning entitled Putin Finally Learned His Lesson. Max, so much. Thanks so much for joining us in your column. A very important, significant, significant column indeed. You write this, Putin is learning what so many tyrants have learned before him. When you unleash the dogs of war, they can come back to bite you. How much is this armed rebellion, do you believe, Max, actually weakened Putin I think it's hard to say, Wolf, exactly how much it has weakened Putin, but it's pretty clear that it has because, you know, he his role depends on this aura of absolute power. The man that nobody can challenge, anybody who does lines up dead or in jail. But you just saw in the last few days that Prigozhin did, in fact, challenge Putin. And we had this amazing spectacle of these mutinous mercenary troops marching on Moscow. And eventually they turned back, but they didn't turn back because they were smashed by the Russian military. In fact, there was very little indication of the Russian military even being willing to fight the Wagner troops. They were ultimately turned back because of a deal brokered by Putin's sidekick, Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus. And by all accounts, Prigozhin gets out of this. He's not he's not going to a prison cell. He's not going six feet under. He's going to Belarus. And, you know, the fighters that he led will get an amnesty. So I think this was clearly a sign of the weakness of the Putin regime. It's not quite as solid as it seems from the outside Yeah, good point. How badly has Putin misstepped by allowing Prigozhin to accrue so much power? pro-Russians attacks on the Russian Defense Ministry have been ramping up, as we all know, for months. Yeah, this is kind of the way that Putin has managed this whole regime over two decades, that he always has competing power centers. He's always playing oligarchs off against one another. Different chieftains within the government against one another. And he's kind of the ultimate arbiter of decision making. But I think the model has been breaking down under the pressure of this losing war. And remember, Russia is losing this war. They are suffering horrifying casualties, the likes of which they have not seen since World War two and for very little gain, that that's kind of what you would expect to happen in the cauldron of a losing war, is that there is a lot of dissatisfaction, there's a lot of grumbling and you're seeing that that competition between Wagner and the Russian defense ministry, it got out of control. Putin could not keep a lid on it anymore. And all of a sudden you know, this Frankenstein monster, the Wagner group that he had created, turned on him and started marching towards the Russian Capitol. So I think clearly that shows that Putin is not as in control of the situation as he would like to think, which is absolutely true. So where does this leave, Max, to the Wagner group? Which has been, as we all know, critical to Putin's war in Ukraine and also, by the way, to Russian operations elsewhere around the world, including specifically in the Middle East and Africa, That's a great question, Wolf. And I think the answer is unclear, at least it's unclear to me what will happen to the Wagner group. I mean, you know, Prigozhin is still going to be around. He's only in Belarus that's not that far away. He can easily run the Wagner group from Belarus. There was there was talk about having the Wagner fighters were loyal to the Russian defense ministry. But what that means in practice in terms of operational control of those fighters, it's very unclear. I will say this, Wolf, that if the Wagner group is no longer on the front lines, on the zero line in Ukraine, I think that'll be a significant blow to the Russian war effort, because the Wagner troops have been some of the most determined and the ones who are willing to suffer horrifying casualties in Putin's brutal cause, much more so than the regular troops or, you know, conscripts and and have low morale. So, you know, whatever happens, I think this is going to lead to less effective Russian military. And the Russian military already wasn't that effective. So I think, you know, we it's very hard to judge the political ramifications because we don't know exactly what's going to happen with the Wagner group. But I think this does create the potential for for giving the Ukrainians an advantage as they pressed forward with their counteroffensive. Yeah, I suspect you're right. What are the implications, Max, of Putin being so deeply, deeply embarrassed out there on the global stage? Well, again, I think this dance, his aura of of being this the Superman and in fact, I think that aura has already been in decline over the past 16 months because, you know, everybody had more respect and fear for Putin before the Ukrainian invasion than after the Ukrainian invasion, because it's revealed the mass of deficiencies in his and his military forces that they have been ground to a halt and in fact, have been pushed back in many areas by the ragtag Ukrainian military. So, you know, I don't think that Putin is going to inspire quite as much fear in the future as he has in the past. And I think what this also indicates is that, you know, it's very possible that time is actually on the side of the Ukrainians because, you know, the the conventional wisdom has been that time is on Russia's side because it's a larger country. Ukraine is dependent on outside help. And the other countries may lose interest in supporting Ukraine. But in fact, I think what this is revealing, Wolf, is something incredibly important, which is the strength of democracy at war, and that's Ukraine. They have a democratically elected leader, whereas near unanimous support, the Ukrainian people are united behind this war effort. Whereas in Russia, you know, their surface support for the war, but very little enthusiasm and certainly no enthusiasm for the Putin regime. Putin engender fear, but he doesn't engender a love or loyalty. And you saw that as soon as the Wagner troops challenged him, most of the population and the Russian armed forces kind of stood on the sidelines. They weren't mobilizing to save Putin. So I think, you know, I think that shows you something very important about the hidden fragility of a dictatorship and the hidden strength of a democracy like Ukraine. Yeah. Excellent, excellent analysis. Max Boot, thank you.
