The grotesque story of Prigozhin’s rebellion ended after one day. It was the day when something of the monolithic edifice of Putin’s tyranny finally crumbled. Images of mercenaries storming military command posts and shooting down helicopters will not be erased from the collective memory. The image of fearless Putin, the example of Stalin, is already in history. The armistice, brokered by the Belarusian dictator, only reveals the nature of the political regime and indicates the degree of involution of Russia itself. Caught between a common criminal, a warlord and a tyrant, the Russian nation can reflect on the consequences of its own choices: lies, barbarism, violence, corruption are part of everyday life in Russia in the blessed year of 2023.

A picture of a fallen empire

Prigozhin’s uprising and everything that followed is also a photograph of today’s Russia. On the frames of this group portrait, you can observe the protagonists of this drama: the dictator and his circle of accomplices, the mercenaries who are going to be removed from the level of power, the Russian army and its rather inept leaders, the Russian people themselves, still in the grip of imperial chimeras.

And this group photo shows the extent of the mutations that have occurred during the decades of Putinism. The suppression of opposition, the intimidation of civil society, the rise of criminal clans, the pervasiveness of state lies, imperialist militarization are all part of the picture that Wagner’s mercenary movement reveals. A synthesis of totalitarianism and domination, Stalinist despotism and brutal patrimonialism, Putin’s Russia presented itself as it is, beyond the shadow of Potemkiniad.

The war against Ukraine aims to perpetuate this political regime based on kleptocracy and barbarism. Having a neighbor that embraces Western pluralism poses a mortal threat: the dramatic contrast between Westernization and collapse into tyranny is starkly exposed today. Ukraine is everything that Putin’s Russia wants to destroy in order to survive.

Putin’s Russia wanted to be an empire, a worthy successor to the empires before it: nostalgia for tsarism and Stalinism skilfully exploits this level of collective resentment. Putin’s Russia has deliberately and aggressively chosen imperialism as its way of existence. From all these options, today’s order is born, the order that Prigozhin’s uprising shows in all its decrepitude.

Demonstration of nuclear weapons cannot mask the underdevelopment of Russia, politically infantilized by propaganda. The social contract between Putin and his subjects has led the Russian nation to this impasse: the confrontation between the kagebist and the common-law criminal is the sequence in which the mess of Russian politics is now concentrated.

What remained of this criminal empire after Prigozhin’s uprising? Prudence forces us to be conscious and restrained. The agony of Putinism cannot be overcome in one day. Although dilapidated and decaying, Putin’s regime has a military monopoly that is now consolidating. Private armies are eventually absorbed by the state army. The war in Ukraine continues to be the raison d’être of Putinism: failure in Ukraine will be an epitaph on the dictator’s tombstone.

Despite losses and exhaustion, Putin’s Russia seems ready to continue the war. Russia cannot accept any other form of organization than the imperial one. Putin’s Russian empire is fighting for its survival on the Ukrainian front. At this historical moment, moral doubts are out of the question. –

Read the whole article and comment on Contributors.ro