Russia’s sole ruler shows himself close to the people in St. Petersburg. In his entourage is also a woman with a prominent father. A signal to Putin’s enemies?
Russian President Vladimir Putin has a strong penchant for numbers. Especially those with a historical background. Putin loves anniversaries, and his political actions are often linked to dates that are of particular importance to him (read more about them here).
Now the Kremlin ruler is apparently offering another taste of his symbolic government actions. In St. Petersburg on Sunday he met the Belarusian ruler Alexander Lukashenko for a mutual exchange.
What was remarkable about it was not only what Putin said there, but also under what circumstances he did it. There would be the place alone. St. Petersburg, Putin’s hometown. It was here that he grabbed political power for the first time as deputy mayor in the 1990s.
Does he let Prigozhin dance all over his nose?
Here Putin also met Yevgeny Prigozhin. The multi-millionaire oligarch and head of the Wagner mercenary group experienced his rise from criminal good-for-nothing (he was imprisoned for a total of nine years for various violent crimes) to influential businessman in St. Petersburg.
Since the failed uprising of the Wagner mercenaries at the end of June 2023, many observers, not only in Russia, have been puzzled about Putin’s relationship with his former protégé Prigozhin. Quite a few suspect that the mutiny that lasted a day and a half in June could only have been the prelude to further attempts to challenge Putin’s power. One of the most prominent advocates of this thesis is the military blogger and convicted war criminal Igor Girkin. Putin had him arrested a few days ago.
So is Putin battered? Does he let someone like Prigozhin dance on his nose? The 71-year-old Kremlin chief probably tried to refute these speculations with his appearance in St. Petersburg. This is how the US think tank Institute for the Study of War (ISW) interprets it in its latest situation report.
The fact that Putin took his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko on a guided tour of the Kronstadt fortress near St. Petersburg is seen by the political experts at the ISW as a clear gesture of Putin’s will to power. After all, it was here that the Bolsheviks, led by Lenin, crushed the famous Kronstadt Sailors’ Uprising and thus secured power in the escalating civil war that the Soviet Union experienced in the aftermath of the First World War. That was in 1921, about a hundred years ago.
Interesting companionship at Putin’s side
Putin loves such historical parallels – and he sees himself and his country in this tradition. The autocrat does a lot to ensure that the Russians keep the memory of the communist repressive state and above all of its cruelest ruler, Josef Stalin, in the best memory. Now, with his appearance in St. Petersburg, he is apparently sending a sign to all suspected adversaries that he is also willing to hold the reins of power firmly in his hands. Like Stalin once did.
In addition, another circumstance of the meeting with Lukashenko can be read as a symbolic gesture. Because at Putin’s side was the governor of St. Petersburg, Alexander Beglov, and Ksenia Shoigu, the daughter of the controversial Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu. Since the beginning of the Ukraine war, he has not only been the focus of criticism from numerous military bloggers, who accuse him of serious military-strategic failures. Shoigu is also one of Prigozhin’s greatest opponents.
Prigozhin is said to have started the “March on Moscow,” i.e. the uprising of the Wagner mercenaries, primarily because he wanted to force Putin to replace his military leadership. In the previous months, the oligarch had vehemently attacked Shoigu in video messages published almost daily.
