Palace intrigue: the Kremlin after the mutiny

Hello and welcome to The Intelligence from The Economist. I'm your host, Ore Ogunbiyi. Every weekday, we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world. India has been hit by a devastating monsoon season, an example of just how frequent extreme weather is becoming. The rains have become increasingly dangerous over the past decade. Will the country finally begin to adapt? And two of the most hotly anticipated movies of the year are out this weekend: Oppenheimer and, of course, Barbie. Which will you see first? Yes, there is a correct order, guys. But if you're choosing either or, your choice may reflect something bigger about your outlook. First up, though, A month ago, in the midst of a foreign war, one of Vladimir Putin's most trusted allies staged an uprising and began a march on Moscow. Of course, we know now that Yevgeny Prigozhin didn't really get that far. It began with the former restaurateur and ex-convict railing against Russia's military brass. Claiming his mercenaries weren't getting enough ammunition. Then he and his band of Wagner Group fighters took control of military installations in the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don, a vital hub for waging war in Ukraine.

Prigozhin called his insurrection a march for justice.

His troops headed north, downing a few helicopters and a plane on the way. Prigozhin claimed that he and his troops were fighting the unchecked corruption and deceit of the Kremlin and vowed that no one would turn themselves in to Russian authorities. But within a few hours, he reportedly struck a deal, stood down his military column, and headed to neighboring Belarus. This rather surreal episode has left many questions unanswered about Putin's standing and what is going on in the Kremlin.

So this whole debacle, I think, has been a huge humiliation for Vladimir Putin.

Arkady Ostrovsky is the Russia and Eastern Europe editor for The Economist.

And it's not just the mutiny itself, but the response that followed. But it basically, I think, has left Putin quite a lot weaker, and it exposed not only the decay of the Russian state, but also the flimsiness of his own support base.

Okay, let's start with Prigozhin. We know he reportedly headed to Belarus after he struck that deal with the Kremlin, but was he actually given that amnesty?

Ori, we really don't know what was in that deal between Prigozhin and Putin, negotiated by Alexander Lukashenko, a rogue dictator of neighboring Belarus. All we do know is that first Putin appears on television in the morning, doesn't name Prigozhin, but says, "This is a stab in the back, there's been treason." [RUSSIAN] Then 5 days later, after Putin has actually said all those things and pledged to crush the mutiny and called him a traitor, Putin's actually meeting him in the Kremlin along with his commanders. So what actual arrangement they've made in those negotiations, we simply don't know. What we do know is that most of Prigozhin's business empire, which is not just Wagner and not just the troll factory, but also enormous contracts for supply of food to the army, to schools, that his property business, his Africa mines, all that seems to be in place for now. According to Russian law, Prigozhin should be now facing various prison sentences. That's if you follow Russian law, which of course Putin himself has trampled all over. But even by the standards of a mafia, which is what Russian state increasingly looks like, he should be probably dead. Prigozhin is clearly neither of those two things and is attending tea with Putin and is now appearing talking to his fighters in neighboring Belarus.

So that raises the question, or rather the questions: why isn't he in jail, and why isn't he dead?

Part of the reason is that he is very much the flesh and blood of Putin's regime. Putin has always established his authority by neutralising, jailing his opponents. But as far as his loyalists are concerned, he's sowed rivalries between them, but he actually hasn't resorted to big Stalin-like purges of his elite. He is not in that sense behaving like a traditional strongman. The danger for Putin is that this criticism has come not from anti-war opposition, which has been pretty much silenced. It has come from within his own pro-war constituency. And Putin's ability to prosecute this war very much depends on the appearance of unity. And therefore, a public split of the kind that we've seen is actually dangerous for him. So he worried, I think quite reasonably, that going after Prigozhin in a very visible way would lead to further cracks within his core constituency.

In his tirade against the Kremlin, Prigozhin really took aim at Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces Valery Gerasimov. Does the reason Putin's not gone after Prigozhin hold for those two as well?

Yes, it is the same reason why Putin actually hasn't gone after Shoigu, and Gerasimov. One, Putin doesn't like to act under any pressure, and basically had he removed them after all the criticism, it would have looked like Putin is acting under pressure and that one party, Prigozhin's party, ultimately is gaining an upper hand. Putin's authority as a chief arbiter would suffer greatly as a result of that. So Putin again is trying to cover up the cracks, And I think he might be also nervous that if he were to replace Shoigu and Gerasimov now in the midst of Ukrainian counteroffensive, and then if the Russian front actually starts collapsing and the Russian forces start being routed, then all the blame for that goes to Putin.

What about the fighters that Prigozhin was leading, the Wagner Group? What's happened to them?

So we don't know exactly how many fighters Prigozhin has got left. His army of mercenaries was at one point estimated to be 60,000-70,000 men. We know, and this is pretty credible because it's been verified actually by foreign intelligence services, that he's lost about 20,000 men in Bakhmut alone. So from what Prigozhin is saying, and Telegram channels close to Wagner saying, About 10,000 men are now in Belarus. We don't know how many have actually decided to sign contracts with the Russian army and how many of them have gone back to Africa or to Syria. Like any mercenary organisation, it's very murky. That's why it was created. So we don't know how many men exactly Prigozhin has got left, but by the looks of the video that he released recently in which he addresses soldiers in Belarus, there are certainly enough fighters for him to create further havoc.

Okay, so the mutiny may be over, but what's the legacy of this mutiny? Are we seeing rifts in the Kremlin, in the army?

I think we are starting to see cracks widening. In a way, what's to me been most interesting about this mutiny is not the mutiny itself, but the response of the Russian system. So let's just step back. And recall what happened during those two days. The police, the security services not only failed to spot this mutiny but did nothing to stop it. The army stayed in its barracks, again allowing Prigozhin and his men to go unhindered. And until the Kremlin figured out what the message should be, even Putin propagandists went completely silent. And on the streets in Russia, nobody came out in support of Vladimir Putin. And we're already seeing some follow-up to that. One of the very senior Russian generals, Ivan Popov, he criticised the head of the army and the Minister of Defence for not rotating soldiers from the front, for not providing enough counter-battery capability, for not having enough reconnaissance. And this is clearly insubordination. This has now spilled into the open.

And how are ordinary Russians responding to all of this?

What this mutiny revealed is the erosion of Kremlin's monopoly over information space. Because this mutiny unfolded on Telegram and online, not on television, which the Kremlin controls. Half of all those, some 46% or so, of Russians who followed the events of Prigozhin's mutiny have sympathised with the messaging about the country's leadership and television lying about the situation at the front, lying about the real causes of the war, that they're corrupt, that they're incompetent. That is not to say that these people are completely against the war or that they support Prigozhin himself—only 20% of people actually support Prigozhin—but it's the message which he borrowed a lot of it from Alexei Navalny, Russia's main opposition leader who's in jail now facing more than 30 years in prison. So Russians are watching, not siding with one party or the other, being very sceptical. But what used to be controlled rows between Putin's entourage has spilled into the open, and that he's lost control I think is very significant.

And lastly, how do these rifts in the Kremlin go on to influence the battlefield reality in Ukraine?

Well, I would put it the other way around. I think rifts in the Kremlin do not necessarily make Russian fighting less effective. However, what happens on the battlefield will either amplify those rifts and make something of them or not. Because if Ukraine manages to break through, then all the cracks will grow and they can have a very significant political impact. What we hear from frontline reporting and from intelligence services, and actually even from some of the angry military patriots on Russian Telegram, is that Russia has pushed everything forward It's making Ukraine's progress a lot slower. But if Ukraine breaks through, as somebody said to me, it's like hitting a brick wall with a sledgehammer. You never know when it starts crumbling. But if it does, there may not be that much behind it, which is exactly what Prigozhin's mutiny just demonstrated.

Arkady, thank you so much for your time. Thank you for having me. To understand more about how Putin's Kremlin works and its many intrigues, listen to Arkady's analysis in our 8-part series, Next Year in Moscow. It's available wherever you get this podcast. After the heat of the summer leaves the ground parched, India's monsoon rains are usually greeted with eager celebration. But this year, far from bringing joy and gratitude, record-breaking rainfall has instead brought destruction and death.

This year, rains have caused floods and landslides across vast parts of northern India.

Vishnu Padmanaban is a data journalist at The Economist.

Houses, roads, and acres of farmland have been washed away. The death toll as of now is at least 100 people have died, but that could still rise. In Delhi, the capital, showers on July 9th were the worst seen there in the past 41 years. That brought the entire city to complete standstill. Schools were closed. In other parts of northwest India, the level of rainfall was more than 50% greater than what usually happens. In some parts of Himachal Pradesh and Punjab, two other states in the north, the rainfall has been double the usual amount. So we've quantified all these excess rainfalls in different states in India in a piece I wrote last week and which listeners can see on the graphic detail section of The Economist website. And over there they can also find similar analysis done by my colleagues for the other extreme weather events that the world is going through right now.

Okay, Vishnu, before we go any further, tell me how monsoon rain comes about.

Sure. So during the summer in India, the heat causes hot air to rise above the entire subcontinent. And so this hot air draws in wet, moist air from the Indian Ocean, and this in turn causes rainfalls. So the rains first arrive in Kerala, which is a state in the south, in June. But from there, they spread across South Asia. And these rains bring respite from months of relentless heat. They provide water to dry farmland, replenish groundwater reserves. So that makes it really important for the country's huge agriculture sector. And so monsoons are very welcome, and it's a time for celebration, usually.

And do you know why we're seeing record rainfall this year?

So meteorologists are blaming it on something called a Western disturbance. That's a rare extratropical storm that originated in the Mediterranean and has moved east. So this storm combined with the monsoons have created these huge levels of rain. Something similar actually happened in 2013. In that year, the floods were even worse. It killed nearly 5,000 people in Uttarakhand, which is a state on the foothills of the Himalayas.

Okay, so in an episode earlier this week, we discussed how extreme weather conditions are becoming more common because of climate change. Is that also a factor here?

So we don't know yet if these monsoons, these heavy monsoons, have been caused by climate change. But in general, climate change is increasing the likelihood of such extreme weather events. So Western disturbances, the extratropical storm I mentioned that caused these heavy rains, are happening earlier now because of global warming, many scientists believe. And then the other effect climate change has is that as the atmosphere's temperature increases, so does its capacity to carry moisture. So one study in 2021, for example, showed that for every 1 degree Celsius increase in global temperatures, the Indian subcontinent can expect around 5% extra rainfall during monsoons.

And how is India adapting to these worsening rains?

Not very well, actually. So many Indian cities struggle with just a few hours of rain. For example, Bangalore, which is the tech capital and startup capital of the country, was flooded after just a couple of hours of rain earlier this year. Now here on both the sides and the main road, both of them, of course, waterlogged here. This is yet another classic example of how, you know, these silt and also clearing of the drains ahead of the monsoon could come a long way in ensuring that such waterlogging does not occur. Delhi in these rains was completely inundated. Underpasses were filled with water. Basically, you couldn't move around the city because of the rains. And a lot of that has to do with increased urbanization, which has resulted in a lot of the new construction being built on low-lying flood-prone land. But it's not just a problem in cities. Even in rural areas, deforestation, especially in the mountains, has removed a natural barrier to floods and landslides. According to a study by the World Resources Institute, 34 million Indians could be at risk from river flooding by 2030, which would be a huge increase from the 12 million at risk in 2010.

And what are the authorities doing about all this? Could they be doing more?

Yeah, so the government has been aware about these problems for a long time and is trying to tackle it. More resources are going into flood prevention. City governments are investing in flood warning systems and drainage networks. But for now, these efforts are falling short. Since 2013, there have been floods during every monsoon that has caused tragedy in some part of India. The risk is there in every monsoon, so the government has to figure out a way to address this.

Vishnu, thank you so much for coming on the show.

Thank you for having me.

It's a hilariously clashing combination. On the one hand, you have J. Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb.

Rachel Lloyd is our deputy culture editor.

He's Wearing a dark suit and a pork pie hat, he's often smoking and staring mournfully into space. And on the other, you have Barbie. She's wearing pink, she's got a matching hair bow, she lives in a pink house with a party slide. They could not be more different. No recent movie matchup has been as eagerly awaited as Barbie and Oppenheimer. Both films are out in America and Britain today, and they'll serve as a test of whether people can be enticed to go back to the cinema. Ever since it became clear that the two films would be out on the same day, people have been delighted by this incongruity. People have made memes mashing up the two. They've made new trailers. Even Bruno Reeves against— oh, Barbie! People couldn't resist comparing the two films, precisely because they are so different. On Reddit, an internet forum, people have debated at length whether they should see the biographical drama or the fantasy comedy first. Part of the excitement about these two films is because of the filmmakers involved in each one. Oppenheimer is directed and written by Christopher Nolan, a British filmmaker who's both an auteur and a commercial success. He's known for always shooting on film, He's known for eschewing computer-generated imagery. So for Oppenheimer, for instance, he uses actual explosions, albeit not nuclear ones. He's known as a real devotee to the craft of cinema. His films often challenge the viewer. They toy with narrative conventions, they toy with time, and they tackle really difficult subjects. For example, in Inception, he looked at the unconscious mind. In Interstellar, he explored theoretical astrophysics. Oppenheimer is More of the same, it's tackling the subject of nuclear physics. And yet, his films have a combined total of around $5 billion in ticket sales. And then, on the other hand, we have Greta Gerwig, who is the director and co-writer of Barbie. She's amassed her own, admittedly smaller, fan club in recent years. She started out as a maven of independent film in a subgenre called mumblecore, because it focuses mostly on dialogue. In recent years, she's broken out with hits such as Lady Bird in 2017 and Little Women in 2019. She has a much humbler ticket sales total of around $300 million, but she is a witty and original filmmaker. And for Barbie, in inspiration, she cited old Hollywood musicals and films about the afterlife, as well as the Genesis myth. These two films encapsulate some of the caprices of the modern movie industry. Barbie, you're beautiful. You make me feel— The doll was introduced in 1959 and has sold roughly a billion items since then. Mattel has said that it's going to exploit the rest of its toy cupboard in the years to come. Whereas Oppenheimer is a more original, serious, dark standalone film of the kind that isn't really made anymore. Most studios are focusing on sequels, spin-offs, and remakes.

Barbie dressed for Swim and fun is only $3. Her lovely fashions range from $1 to $5.

And the two films also encapsulate an enduring choice: do you want realism or do you want escapism? Oppenheimer offers realism. It's a somber story. It's not obviously a crowd pleaser. Barbie, on the other hand, is not like that at all. It's a comedy. It's very, very funny. And Barbieland is obviously a dream world. It's a place of escape. It's a place where even adults can go to if they want to. Christopher Nolan likened Oppenheimer to a horror flick. On the other hand, Barbie deals in pure escapism and pleasure. Greta Gerwig described the set of Barbie, which contributed to a global shortage of pink paint, as a dopamine generator. It's meant to be funny, it's very self-referential, and it toys with the alluring comfort of dream worlds. So, which one will moviegoers go for? Well, history offers a bit of a clue. In times of turmoil, most people go for escapism. During the current geopolitical climate, given that war in Europe rages on, the origin story of weapons of mass destruction might feel a bit too real and raw for audiences. During the Great Depression, many of the highest-grossing films were musicals and historical epics. The same was true during the Second World War. David Thomson, a film historian and author, reckons that in times of difficulty, viewers don't want to see a serious film as much as they want to see a frivolous one. He told me that comedies are great because they give people a couple of hours of freedom from their problems. <LYRICS>You gotta make your own kind of music—</LYRICS> After all, who wants reality when life in plastic? This is so fantastic.

This could mean extremely weird things for our world.

This would be— That's all for this episode of The Intelligence. The show's editors are Chris Impey and Jack Gill. Our deputy editor is Jonjo Devlin, and our sound engineer is Will Roe, with help this week from Johnny Allen. Our senior producers are Sam Westron and Galloway. Our senior creative producer is William Warren. Our producers are Alizee Jean-Baptiste, Kevin Kainas, Barkley Bram, and Sarah Larniuk, with extra production help this week from Elna Schutz, Benji Guy, and Maggie Khadifa. We'll all see you back here on Monday.

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