In the early weeks of the Ukraine war in the winter of 2022, Russia seemed to lack an effective battle plan as a succession of battlefield commanders struggled to adjust to changing circumstances on the ground.
Inside the Kremlin, it’s been a different story. Analysts say that Russian President Vladimir Putin appears to have gamed out and prepared for most scenarios that could threaten his iron grip on power, using his often-underestimated raw political skill to insulate himself from challengers and to make his survival indispensable to the future of the state itself.
But analysts say Mr. Putin believes he can control such voices and use them to his advantage. For Mr. Putin, it’s a high-stakes political game in which he positions different Russian power centers against one another — and in the process ensures he remains the most powerful of all. On the ground in Ukraine, Mr. Prigozhin’s hired-gun forces are playing a key role in the battle for Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine, where Ukrainian defenders are grimly holding on against advancing Russian forces. He has taken on a key role as a leading voice pushing for Moscow to be more aggressive in the fighting.
“Putin has created a regime that centers around him, a power-vertical, in which he is not just the key decision-maker but also keeps all the nodes of power in balance,” Max Bergmann, director of the Europe Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, wrote in a recent“If he is removed, the system would likely be in danger of toppling. Putin himself has not figured out the conundrum of succession, either how to leave or who should succeed him.
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