In the winter of 1993, I was fortunate to travel to Russia as a graduate student at Marquette University, with several other students. Unfortunately, we arrived in the aftermath of a Russian coup attempt, where chaos reigned as the country lurched toward 1994.
And that was even before the invasion of Chechnya.
To outsiders, and those within the country who believe the propaganda of whoever happens to be in charge, the Russian bear is one of the most powerful forces on the planet. To those who study the country more closely, and to Russians who have learned to discount the lies from the government, it’s more of a paper tiger… or paper bear, if you will.
Russian regimes are more closely related to the Potemkin Villages, facades of homes hastily thrown together to show Empress Catherine the Great, or whatever Czar followed, how great the country looked. A far cry from reality.
Russian President Boris Yeltsin was the man of the hour in 1991, facing down Soviet coup plotters who had just ousted Mikhail Gorbachev, until those fateful days in late 1993 when the Communist-led Duma tried to impeach him, and he dissolved parliament. Tanks came out in the streets, unsure of who to support, though they finally backed Yeltsin.
Though he won reelection, Yeltsin never held the same amount of power, or sway.
For many Russians, and even supporters in the West, Vladimir Putin held a similar level of awe and fear, based more upon manipulation and propaganda than real power or devotion. Those who thought Ukraine would fall in a matter of hours back in 2022 were sadly mistaken.
Over the weekend, the Wagner Mercenary Group launched an attack upon the Russian military, retaliation for what they claim was an attack by the Russian military forces under the command of the Ministry of Defense.
As Aric Toler with Bellingcat writes:
Hard to understate how insane this is. Rostov has over a million people, Russia’s 11th most populated city and a military hub. It’s like disgruntled Blackwater vets seizing San Diego against little to no resistance.
And there’s a probability that Putin fled to a safe location during the internal chaos.
Yevgeny Prigozhin realized that while he had a lot of support, the ex-chef turned mercenary leader of Wagner probably realized he didn’t have enough to take the country, and allegedly, members of the government threatened to slaughter the coup leaders’ relatives. But before he opted for exile in Belarus, and a possible “surprise demise” in the future, he revealed the truth to the world about Russia’s illegal, inhumane lies about their invasion of Ukraine.
“Why was the war needed?” Prigozhin revealed, as reported by Reuters. “The war was needed so that a handful of scumbags could have a blast and get PR attention showing how strong the army is. The war was needed not in order to return Russian citizens to our bosom. And not in order to demilitarize and de-Nazify Ukraine. It was needed for one star with additional embroidery so that one mentally sick man could look good on a coffin pillow.”
The response of those who have taken Putin’s side in the conflict was either stunned silence, or to make wild claims without hard evidence that America was responsible for the coup attempt.. Yeah, we backed the guy whose bot farms may well have meddled in the 2016 election. Right.
There’s not much you can do for the dead Ukrainians and Russian families grieving over their fallen loved ones. But the next time some Putin propagandist starts spouting off more pro-Russian arguments or anti-American lies, you’ll have more evidence to answer that person.
John A. Tures is Professor of Political Science and Coordinator of the Political Science Program at LaGrange College, in LaGrange, Georgia.