Cables From The Diplomatic Frontlines - post-Wagner era for Russian power in the Middle East and Africa.

Foreign operations implications of the Wagner leadership’s demise.

• We have - in the previous post - highlighted how improbable it was that even if it was an opportunist enemy of Prigozhin (rather than Putin himself) that wanted to get rid of him (now that Wagner leader was not in Putin’s favor), that such a move (assassination) was inconceivable without Putin’s go ahead.

• One reason for that, is reputational damage to Putin for not keeping his word: he did after all let him go free.

• It was a widely internalized impression that Prigozhin was given a way out and that Putin was not going to punish him or his followers - as long as they agreed to give up their heavy arms, move out of Ukraine (or sign contracts with Russia’s military) and move their base to Belarus.

• Violating this promise is a privilege only for Putin - only he can change his own mind and calculate that it is after all, better to get rid of Prigozhin at the cost of damaging his word and credibility.

• (side note: let’s not forget that Russia is not ruled by a constitutional order - it is a Mafia state, where promises and words are meant to be kept. So there is definitely a hit to Putin’s reputation for ‘‘honor among thieves”. It is just that on this occasion, Putin opted in favor of a reputation for ruthlessness instead)

• In other words, it is not for any other party to make that decision on Putin’s behalf - killing Prigozhin without Putin’s go-ahead is a clear disregard to Putin’s word - and therefore, a direct challenge to Putin and his power.

• So that is one reason for the implausibility of Prigozhin’s assassination without Putin’s approval - there isn’t any other intra-system player that would have risked crossing Putin so openly.

• (side note: this is especially so, given that such a player’s identity would sooner or later be revealed to Putin. Since, only a player of sufficient weight and ambition would have made such a daring move without Putin’s permission. And such an individual would necessarily have other high-up competitors/rivals eager to leak this operation to Putin)

• But there is also another important reason: simply put, Prigozhin played a very important role in projecting Russia’s hard power across the Middle East and Africa.

• His death will carry major implications for Russia and for the aforementioned regions as a whole.

• We should therefore unpack the most important and foreseeable consequences of the vacuum that will be left due to Prigozhin’s death.