Russia’s embattled defence minister was in the hot seat long before Yevgeny Prigozhin sent his Wagner mercenaries racing to Moscow on a stated mission to oust him. The latter’s failure shows President Vladimir Putin is unwilling to sacrifice his long-time confidant – at least for now.
Wagner’s aborted weekend rebellion wound up without attaining its stated goal: the removal of Prigozhin’s archenemy Sergei Shoigu, the seemingly untouchable defence minister who has overseen Russia’s grindingly slow invasion of Ukraine.
To dispel any notion that Putin might have bowed to Prigozhin’s demands, Russian authorities on Monday released video footage of Shoigu flying in an army helicopter, examining military maps and holding talks with officers.
The undated video led some observers to speculate that Moscow may have recycled old footage to give the impression that the minister was out on the front line. Either way, the timing of its release sent out a clear message after the extraordinary drama that unfolded at the weekend.
“It showed to everyone that Putin is behind Shoigu – and still firmly in control,” said Jenny Mathers, a Russia specialist at the University of Aberystwyth in Wales.
“The Kremlin is trying to convey the idea of stability and continuity at the helm after the weekend’s events,” added Stephen Hall, a lecturer in Russian and post-Soviet politics at the University of Bath in England.
‘Loyalty trumps competence’
Shoigu’s removal had been a key demand of Prigozhin, who blamed the defence minister for botching the invasion of Ukraine and causing the deaths of “tens of thousands” of Russian troops.
By showcasing the minister, Monday’s video hammered home the point that the Wagner rebellion had failed to reach its goals, said Luke March, a Russia expert at the University of Edinburgh.
“If Putin had fired him, it would have looked like he did so under pressure, which would have been a sign of weakness,” he explained.
Such a move would also have forced the Kremlin to change its narrative about the war in Ukraine, added Mathers, noting that Shoigu’s removal “would have meant acknowledging that something is not going according to plan”.
Having survived an unprecedented challenge to his authority, Putin is now desperate to steady the ship. Indeed, one reason Shoigu stays put is precisely because the rebel Prigozhin wanted him out. But there is more to it.
The embattled minister has survived calls for his ouster since the beginning of Moscow’s so-called “Special Military Operation”, gradually becoming the principal target of ultra-nationalist critics of the Russian army’s shoddy campaign.
As Hall noted, the defence minister “doesn’t have a lot to show for since the war started”. In this respect, March observed, his political survival provides concrete evidence that “loyalty tends to trump competence” at the Kremlin.
Who to replace him?
A long-time confidant of the Russian strongman, Shoigu has in the past gone on hunting and fishing trips to Siberia with Putin. He belongs to what Hall described as the “shrinking group of loyalists whom Putin still trusts”.
Shoigu was appointed defence minister in 2012, replacing Anatoly Serdyukov, whose sweeping reforms of the military had alienated top generals. From the outset, the incoming minister showed he had a knack for smoothing things over.
As he took on the job, Shoigu “quietly watered down (Serdyukov’s) reforms in order to appease the generals", said Mathers. “Since then, he has been very good at getting along with the boss and persuading him that everything is fine.”
Shoigu has another asset in the eyes of the strongman in the Kremlin: he is part-Tuvan – an ethnic group that is indigenous to Siberia – and thus one of the very few non-ethnic Russians to have made it to a top government post. His background means “he would stand very little chance of becoming president and doesn’t represent a threat to Putin’s power", said Mathers.
Another reason for Shoigu’s longevity is the lack of suitable alternatives. As Hall put it, “whether or not Shoigu’s star has fallen may be not so relevant, because who would Putin put in charge to replace him?”
In recent days, Russian commentators have speculated that Putin could replace Shoigu with Alexei Dyumin, the governor of Tula region, south of Moscow, who has held top army and presidential security posts. However, Dyumin has a number of flaws in Putin’s eyes: he is ambitious, still relatively young (50), and considered close to Prigozhin.
First Gerasimov, then Shoigu?
While Putin has good reason to hold on to his minister for the time being, the Wagner rebellion may well have sealed Shoigu’s fate in the longer run.
The mutiny has “undeniably weakened his image", said March, noting that Shoigu’s absence from the airwaves during the weekend’s dramatic events “hardly gave the impression that he was capable of defending the nation – which is the very definition of his job”.
The defence minister’s disappearance at the height of Russia’s most serious crisis since Soviet times will have done little to assuage his many critics, which begs the question of how long Putin will want to be associated with him.
So far, Shoigu has allowed Putin to “deflect the blame” for Russia’s military setbacks in Ukraine, March observed. “But the fact that Putin is backing him so strongly may mean that, at the end, his fate is tied to Shoigu’s,” he cautioned.
While Prigozhin’s challenge has petered out, the decision to stand by a minister who has lost the confidence of many in the military threatens to further alienate an institution already demoralised by the lack of progress in Ukraine and now rattled by Wagner’s mutiny, March added.
“Sticking with Shoigu is going to lower morale in the ranks of the generals because it suggests that the criticism voiced by Prigozhin – and shared by part of the military – is not being heard,” he explained.
Instead of firing Shoigu, Putin could choose to get rid of his right-hand man Valery Gerasimov, the chief of staff of the armed forces – though axing the seasoned soldier while sparing the civilian minister would be a risky move.
Read moreShoigu and Gerasimov: Masters of Putin's wars
“In the middle of a war, sacking the one with the military expertise and not the other guy won’t necessarily go down well with the army,” said March. “But Putin may think it could buy him some time.”
The Russian leader needs enough time for public opinion to move on from the shock of Wagner’s uprising. After which, he will be free to sack his loyal minister – without it looking like he bowed to pressure.
This article was translated from the original in French.
