November 08, 2023
The Russia Stability Tracker
November 2023
In February 2023—one year into Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine—CNAS convened a group of leading U.S. experts on Putin’s Russia and authoritarianism to assess how the war is shaping political stability inside the country. This assessment updates the key pillars of Putin’s stability identified and analyzed in the February 2023 and June 2023 reports and takes into account how events over the last four months have impacted each of these pillars.
The group’s experts did not predict Wagner Head Yevgeny Prigozhin’s failed mutiny in late June 2023. Although the group highlighted his very public and personal criticisms of Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and General Valery Gerasimov and the tensions that this created within the system, the group did not anticipate the timing or brazenness of Prigozhin’s challenge. Since the failed mutiny, Russian President Putin and the Kremlin have moved to reassert control, including by likely orchestrating Prigozhin’s death in a plane crash in August. The experts generally agreed that for now, there are no immediate threats to Putin’s hold on power, although the failed mutiny creates greater uncertainty about the long-term stability of the regime. The tracker is followed by an overarching assessment of Putin’s stability by some the group’s experts.
Pillars of Putin’s Stability
Pillars | Trending (Change/Effect on Putin's Stability) |
---|---|
Absence of an Alternative to Putin |
No Change | Supporting Stability
|
Cohesive Political and Economic Elite |
Weakening | Still Eroding Stability
|
Control over Information Environment |
No Change | Supporting Stability
|
Economic Well-being |
No Change | Eroding Stability
|
Exit of the Most Discontented |
Weakening | Still Supporting Stability
|
Historically Apolitical Military |
No Change | Supporting Stability
|
Loyal Security Services |
No Change | Supporting Stability
|
Putin’s Popularity |
No Change | Supporting Stability
|
Repression |
Weakening | Still Supporting Stability
|
Russia as a Besieged Fortress |
No Change | Supporting Stability
|
Assessing the Changes in Putin’s Pillars of Stability
The absence of an alternative to Putin remains among the most critical pillars of regime stability. Wagner head Yevgeny Prigozhin was a political outsider, albeit with access to weapons. Although he had some populist appeal to disenchanted Russians, he lacked support among the political elite and was never widely considered a viable alternative to Putin. Moreover, the Kremlin’s likely assassination of Prigozhin in a plane crash in August not only removed a major irritant to the Kremlin, but it sent a chilling message to would-be challengers. Anyone challenging Putin must be confident in their success, or they will face a similarly nasty demise.
Western experts in conversation with Russian interlocutors report that many Russians working in the presidential administration believe that launching a war against Ukraine was a mistake. But they all say that since Russia has started the war, it must now win it. Moreover, most of the political and economic elite have no alternative but to remain loyal to the regime—the cost of voicing disagreement is unacceptably high given extreme repression (see below). The costs of exiting Russia have also grown as Russian elites have trouble finding opportunities outside the country as advantageous for them and their families as their current positions.
Although the elite remains loyal to the regime, there are different visions for Russia’s future—factions that Russian analyst Tatiana Stanovaya has labeled the “pragmatists,” who would like to shift focus away from the war and pursue concrete policy proposals, and the “hardliners,” who propose a full mobilization and more extreme policy changes to enable Russia’s wartime effort. The hardliners remain on the periphery, but a perceived weakening of Putin’s position within the system could empower this group and upset the current status quo over time.
There are also visible signs of opposition from some of the few oligarchs who have left Russia. For example, Arkady Volozh, former CEO of Yandex, denounced the war in a likely effort to have EU sanctions against him removed. Putin has lashed out more publicly against those in the elite who have left. He recently denounced Anatoly Chubais in a vicious attack, likely intended to intimidate other members of the business elite.
Finally, questions about the health of Chechen strongman and key Putin ally Ramzan Kadyrov have been circulating. In the case of his death, his tight regime would likely identify a consensus candidate to enable his clique to sustain their hold on power, perhaps under the leadership of Kadyrov’s eldest son. Nonetheless, Kadyrov’s health and stability in the North Caucasus merits watching as it could precipitate instability the Kremlin would have to navigate.
The Kremlin continues to tighten its control over the information environment, through both legislation and efforts to reign in pro-war commentators that have been critical of Moscow’s execution of the war. In June, Putin met with a group of war correspondents and bloggers, a group that has been critical in shaping politically minded Russians’ understanding of the war. Although this may be an indication of Kremlin anxiety about its ability to control the narrative, it signals its intent to reign this group in.
Prigozhin’s failed mutiny provides a good indicator of the extent of the Kremlin’s control over the information environment. Given the government’s tight control over the media, the Kremlin was able to tarnish Prigozhin’s image, present him as a traitor, and ultimately, treat the failed mutiny as a non-event. In part for these reasons, public opinion appeared unaffected by the incident.
Meanwhile, reporter Evan Gershkovich remains in pre-trial detention until at least November, and Western journalists continue to leave the country.
There are some visible signs of economic distress. The ruble has fallen to all-time lows, falling past the 100 rubles per dollar threshold that carries a particular psychological importance for Russian consumers. A weaker currency is likely to fuel inflation by making imports more expensive. Russia’s economy is also facing supply chain issues, along with labor shortages, in large part given the mass exodus of IT specialists and engineers. Sberbank CEO Herman Gref said that Russia is grappling with a severe shortage of IT specialists of around one million people, a problem that will likely persist over the next few years. The weak ruble also makes Russia a less attractive market for its migrant workers, hurting other sectors of Russia’s economy.
Ordinary Russians still are not feeling the pinch of sanctions. According to Chicago Council and Levada polling, 80 percent of Russians said that sanctions have not created big problems for them. Most Russians report—consistent with Kremlin narratives—that the sanctions are designed to weaken and humiliate Russia.
Russia’s draft budget also lays out increases for social support, which are intended to shore up the regime’s popularity ahead of the presidential election in March 2024. It remains unclear, however, how Moscow will raise the funds for projected increases in spending (defense spending will increase to nearly 6 percent of GDP, up from 3.9 percent this year and 2.7 percent in 2021). Moscow’s financial compensation to the families of relatives killed in the war will also likely support the Putin regime’s stability.
There continue to be rumors that Russia will launch another major mobilization campaign in the coming months, which would test the restrictions that the Duma implemented to tamp down on those Russians leaving the country to avoid being drafted. Many analysts believe the Kremlin will try to defer any such mobilization until after the March 2024 presidential elections.
Meanwhile, many Russians who fled in the aftermath of the invasion and the mass mobilization in fall 2022 are experiencing financial and other challenges that are forcing them to return, and Putin is encouraging them to do so (although signals from others in the regime are contradictory, as Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin recently threatened returning war opponents with exile to Magadan). Some European countries, for example, are making increasingly clear that they are not universally welcome. The Baltic states are making it difficult for Russians to visit or live there and, in some cases, won’t admit cars with Russian license plates.
Anti-war Russians abroad have also expressed concerns that the Kremlin is covertly pressuring host countries to send them back to Russia. Although the Kremlin will use repression to keep such groups in check, the return of these Russians can contribute to pockets of discontent that could be catalyzed by a triggering event.
The mutiny and demise of Prigozhin appears to have reinforced the Kremlin’s control over the military, although the extent of support that Prigozhin might have had within the Russian military remains unclear. Putin continues to back Shoigu and Gerasimov despite Prigozhin’s calls for their dismissal. Although there were some purges in the military in the aftermath of the failed mutiny, most notably the dismissal of General Sergei Surovikin (although he still appears to be working in the Ministry of Defense), the purges were far less extensive than they might have been, perhaps in part to prevent creating any further discontent within the ranks.
As far as one can see, despite rivalries among and between the different intelligence services, they remain loyal to Putin and contribute to the stability of the system. One dynamic that merits attention, however, is the balance of power between the security services—political science research shows that new or intensified service rivalries can raise a country’s coup risk. In particular, Rosgvardia (the National Guard of Russia) appears to have been the primary beneficiary of Prigozhin’s failed mutiny. In the wake of the incident, Putin signed a measure into law allowing Rosgvardia to be equipped with heavy weaponry, suggesting that the Kremlin is doubling down on resourcing the organization as one of the key groups responsible for ensuring regime security.
To the extent that polls on Russian public opinion are reliable, polls since February 2023 suggest that Putin’s approval ratings stand at or over 80 percent (on par with the December 2022 polls). For a significant portion of the public, Prigozhin's death was a well-deserved outcome. Even those who sympathized with him largely condemned the mutiny, believing it weakened the regime during wartime.
The Kremlin promoting political apathy has become a thing of the past, and there is greater pressure for public displays of support for the regime. The Kremlin held a large rally for young people in Red Square to celebrate the incorporation of the four annexed Ukrainian territories a year ago. Military education is being reintroduced in schools, and the Russian people are continually being fed the message that this is an existential fight with the West, which wants to destroy Russia—a message that resonates with the average Russian.
Repression inside Russia continues to rise. The Kremlin has cracked down on both ends of its opposition—the liberals and the pro-war, ultra-nationalists. In July, the Kremlin arrested Igor Girkin, an ultra-nationalist who had been highly critical of the Kremlin but who the Kremlin had previously allowed to voice dissent. On the other end of the spectrum, Kremlin critic Vladimir Kara-Murza is now in a Siberian maximum security penal colony normally reserved for hardened criminals. Alexei Navalny is in solitary confinement in a harsh penal colony.
The crackdown on civil society also continues. In July, Putin signed into law a bill expanding the definition of so-called foreign agents, making it even easier for the state to target its domestic critics. The Kremlin raided the homes of activists from Golos and opened a criminal investigation against the co-chair of the election-monitoring group.
The riots and angry mobs at the Makhachkala airport in Dagestan, however, highlight a potential regime vulnerability—an inability of the security services to act in the absence of instruction from the top. Putin himself seems hesitant in responding to challenging situations, which paralyzes the regime as security officials do nothing absent clear direction for fear that doing so could jeopardize their jobs. An inability of the regime to promptly react to challenges raises the risk that relatively small challenges could spiral into something larger.
The Kremlin continues to fuel the besieged fortress narrative. Russian media, in particular, has seized on Ukrainian drone attacks on Moscow and other targets inside the country to reinforce Putin’s notion that Russia is under attack and engaged in an existential struggle with the West.
Expert Assessments
Based on the above dynamics, the experts agreed that:
Despite the high drama of Prigozhin’s failed mutiny and his subsequent death, there are few apparent risks to Putin’s hold on power ...
Put simply, the result of the Prigozhin affair in summer 2023 was the elimination of a potential rival to Putin. In the long term, this means greater uncertainty regarding the future of Russia and who will lead it, but in the short term, it means greater consolidation of control for Putin. Prigozhin’s mutiny in late July was both a huge surprise for much of the world and a huge embarrassment for Putin. For a moment, it seemed possible that Putin’s grip on power could unravel. Perhaps just as quickly, however, Prigozhin backed down, Putin reasserted control, and eventually Prigozhin was assassinated. Such episodes of extreme uncertainty—where suddenly the impossible seems possible—vary in form in authoritarian regimes, but they do occasionally transpire. In rare instances, regimes succumb to the challenge, as did Ben Ali’s in Tunisia in 2011. More often, however, they withstand it—as did Erdoğan of Turkey following the failed coup in 2016 and Maduro of Venezuela following the 2018 presidential crisis. And the result is the sidelining or silencing of key challengers to their rule. As such, though the egos of such leaders may be bruised, they typically emerge with greater political control, not less.
At the end of June, it appeared that the Putin system might be seriously challenged. Wagner’s Yevgeny Prigozhin mounted a mutiny and appeared to have considerable support—including from General Surovikin—when he took over the Rostov base and began to march toward Moscow. Putin appeared briefly on television, looking angry and uncertain of himself. For 24 hours, the world wondered whether a civil war might break out. But Prigozhin turned back because he was apparently not sure what would happen when he and his troops arrived in Moscow. In the following weeks, Putin was able to reassert his leadership, Prigozhin was eventually killed, and Defense Minister Shoigu and Chief of General Staff Gerasimov remained in office. Without any alternative, Putin’s grip on power appears strong. He has used the war with Ukraine to strengthen his position and convince those Russians who remain in Russia that there is no alternative to victory and that Russia will win. The average Russian has not felt the economic pinch from sanctions, and Russia is still earning billions of dollars from hydrocarbon sales. Repression has increased, but Putin’s popularity remains high. As he prepares for his election campaign in 2024, he will be unchallenged and will undoubtedly win by a wide margin.
… but in the longer term, challenges—especially those stemming from Putin’s war in Ukraine—remain.
President Putin’s political position remains stable. The major political development since our June assesment was Yevgeny’s Prigozhin’s “coutiny”—more than a mutiny in that Prigozhin’s men killed fellow Russian soldiers in their so-called “March for Justice,” but less than a coup in that Prigozhin did not directly call for Putin’s removal and pulled up stakes short of Moscow. We do not know much about the political consequences of failed coups and mutinies. One extensive review of the academic literature finds few robust relationships but notes that coups breed coups, though mostly in military dictatorships. High country income and wealth discourage coups, while political instability and violence encourage them. These factors all suggest a coup in the classic sense is unlikely in the near term. Moreover, the ease with which Prigozhin was dispatched would be an added deterrent to a potential coup-plotter. At the same time, Prigozhin’s “coutiny” is a reminder that political threats in autocracies often emerge unpredictably, and political change often occurs in a nonlinear fashion in these settings. As assessed in the June update, events on the ground in Ukraine remain likely to provide the greatest relative threat to President Putin’s position, although personalist autocrats often stay in power after military defeats, so the risk of losing power via this channel remains low in absolute terms. While military setbacks on their own might not threaten Putin, they may be more dangerous when combined with other potential problems (e.g., economic hardship at home; visible social costs resulting from the sanctions, such as the grounding of passenger planes for lack of parts; or obvious failures of governance). One looming issue is the continuation of U.S. military aid to Ukraine. Signaling that military aid from the U.S. will cease or decline dramatically would likely embolden Putin, strengthen war supporters in Russia, and further reduce the threat of Putin losing power.
I don’t see significant change in underlying structural variables. In a more speculative vein, I have thought for some time that change is most likely to come about—if at all—through progressive degeneration of the Kremlin’s managerial and decision-making capacity as mini-crises and challenges proliferate, and as perceived weakness at the center causes lower-level agents to default to corruption and inaction. At some point, such erosion could trigger a serious crisis. Pressure is gradually rising. Although Russian defenses have held back the Ukrainian counteroffensive, some problems have grown more acute. As Ukraine strikes within Crimea, many ships from the Black Sea Fleet have been withdrawn from Sevastopol. There are signs of increasing unease at home about conscription—the number of Yandex searches for “when will the mobilized return” has increased significantly. Key decisions will be made over the next month about strategy in the 2024 presidential election. The Kremlin has reportedly ordered polls asking respondents whether Putin’s resignation would “improve, worsen, or not change the situation in the country” and whether someone else could “replace Putin as president.” Putin’s announcement of his candidacy for president in late 2011 prompted a wave of discontent, followed by mass demonstrations in 2011–2012. The Kremlin seems at least concerned about such a possibility now. None of this suggests imminent danger to the regime, but the risk of serious mistakes is rising.
After Prigozhin’s brief but spectacular “mutiny,” Putin appears to have retaken the reins of power and looks to be settling in for a prolonged national mobilization. Yet he is now presiding over an increasingly unpredictable regime, one that is slowly but inevitably approaching the end of its life and appears increasingly vulnerable to domestic and external pressures. Putin’s reliance on a small circle of loyalists has created a governance structure that is resistant to adaptation, and this calcification is especially dangerous given the institutional deficiencies and systemic corruption in which the regime operates. Though he still commands the support of the coercive apparatus and faces no immediate threats, regime uncertainty has increased, and Putin appears less indispensable than he did a year ago.
The key word here, I think, is “apparent.” We could see Prigozhin’s uprising coming and the fissures that generated it, and we could see the knots into which the Kremlin had to tie itself to get through the last several months of Russian politics. Depending on your point of view, you can arrive at the conclusion that the outcome of the Prigozhin affair indicates the Kremlin’s flexibility and thus its strength, or you could arrive at the conclusion that it indicates the Kremlin’s vulnerability and shrinking room for maneuver. The evidence for each of these opposing conclusions is, in my view at least, equally strong, and so we are left not really knowing whether the Kremlin is stronger or weaker as a result. The silver lining, however, is that the Russian elite are likely equally flummoxed and will continue to reevaluate their sense of Putin’s strength on a situational and a contextual basis, responding to emerging political challenges only hesitantly and with hedged bets, thus making it difficult for the Kremlin to rely on proactive loyalty. If I had to put my finger on one key challenge to the regime, that would be it.
Putin’s likely assassination of Prigozhin sent a clear reminder to other would-be challengers that the bar is high for displacing Putin. Even if Prigozhin did not intend to directly challenge Putin, the regime’s response demonstrates zero tolerance for public displays of disloyalty. Although it appears Prigozhin had some sympathy for his cause from the inside, it was not nearly enough to trigger a cascade of support away from Putin. Always wanting to remain on the winning side, the political and security sector elite will, for now, remain loyal to Putin. But their apparent lack of enthusiasm for Putin suggests they will continue to monitor the political winds to gauge any change in their direction. Now the question becomes whether Putin’s efforts to sustain the stability of the regime will prove effective or unintentionally precipitate new challenges. For example, the militarization of Russian society, including the allowance to regional governors to create their own private military companies and the granting to Rosgvardia (the National Guard) the ability to access heavy weapons, could raise the risk of a more violent and chaotic transition later. As the failed mutiny underscored, things look stable, until suddenly they are not.
About the Author
Dr. Andrea Kendall-Taylor is a Senior Fellow and Director of the Transatlantic Security Program at CNAS. She previously served as Deputy National Intelligence Officer for Russia and Eurasia at the National Intelligence Council and as a senior intelligence officer at the CIA.
About the Transatlantic Security Program
The mission of the Transatlantic Security Program is to strengthen transatlantic relations and help decision makers understand, anticipate, and respond to challenges in Europe and Russia. Key among these challenges are the rise of China, a revisionist Russia, threats to democracy, and other changes in Europe’s security landscape that will require NATO to adapt. The Transatlantic Security Program addresses these issues by working closely with our network of current and former U.S. and European government officials, private sector partners, and academic experts to translate cutting-edge research into policy solutions. We foster high-level U.S.-European dialogue, convene seminars and public forums, and engage with media and citizens to shape the context in which policies are made.
Acknowledgments
This report was made possible with the generous support of the Bertelsmann Foundation, BP America, Canadian Department of National Defense, Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany, Embassy of the Republic of Finland, Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Estonian Ministry of Defence, Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Latvian Ministry of Defense, Ministry of National Defence of the Republic of Lithuania, Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Royal Norwegian Ministry of Defence.
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The June 2023 Wagner mutiny was the closest Russia had come to an armed struggle for power near the capital since the early 1990s. Key parts of the military and security apparatus seemed paralyzed during the mutiny. And yet, Russian political life has seemingly moved on as if nothing happened. This can partly be explained by Prigozhin’s subsequent murder, interpreted by most people as a realization of Putin’s previously stated assertion that he “shows no mercy” to traitors. Even more important in understanding the reaction to the Wagner mutiny is the recognition that Prigozhin had a unique status among the elite—although he was not in Putin’s inner circle, he had clear connections to Putin and controlled media and financial resources and, most importantly, his own quasi-private army, the Wagner Group. With Prigozhin’s death, the only figure among the elite who is remotely comparable is Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov. Kadyrov’s health thus bears watching. Despite the seeming paralysis in the power ministries during the mutiny, the heads of Russia’s military and security structures are all Putin loyalists, and most of them have been in these positions for many years. The memory of the perceived vulnerability of the regime won’t go away, but unless there’s some other major unexpected shock to the system, there is no reason to think this represents a source of instability for Putin at this time.