Contrarian take on the Wagner Putsch - with Richard Fontaine

Call Me Back - with Dan Senor

Ark Media

Society, October 7, Hamas, War, Foreign Policy, Geopolitics, Israel, News Commentary, News, Politics, Elections, Palestine, Dan Senor, Government

4.8 • 2.3K Ratings

🗓️ 26 June 2023

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Last weekend, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner mercenary group, launched a rebellion, coup or putsch against Moscow. It's still hard to discern what it was. As of now, It seems Prigozhin has halted the Wagner operation. The situation is fluid, and we aren’t going to leap to conclusions on this podcast. But our guest today, Richard Fontaine, told me he is skeptical that these events so far reflect real cracks in President Putin’s rule. So I asked Richard to hop on our podcast to unpack where he think events are headed. Richard is the CEO of the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), bi-partisan foreign policy think tank in Washington, DC. Prior to CNAS, he was foreign policy advisor to Senator John McCain and worked at the State Department, the National Security Council, and on the staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He serves on the Biden administration’s Defense Policy Board – which advises the Pentagon.

Transcript

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0:00.0	You know if you look at this in the big kind of global picture Russia's become for China the drunk embarrassing uncle at the
0:11.8	Thanksgiving table.
0:14.0	They're now related to him.
0:17.0	They've signed up.
0:18.0	They're with the Russians through thick and thin.
0:21.0	But the Chinese are trying to portray themselves
0:25.6	as worthy of global leadership and presenting
0:28.6	a reasonable alternative to a Western-based
0:31.6	Western-led international order and all these other kinds of things.
0:35.2	And Russia is over time showing itself to be less effective militarily than when China and Russia announced this quasi alliance right before the war began,
0:46.7	less politically coherent than before, less competent than before, poorer than before, and that's not good
0:57.1	when you're looking for an ally. Over this past weekend, Yevgeny Prigosian, the leader of the Wagner mercenary group, launched a rebellion,
1:16.7	or a coup, or a putch, or, it's hard to discern exactly what that was, against President Vladimir Putin's rule.
1:24.7	As of now it seems the progosian is halted, but appeared to be a military or
1:29.1	at least a political offensive against Moscow.
1:32.2	It's difficult to know where these events in Russia are headed.
1:34.8	The situation is fluid and we aren't going to leap to conclusions on this
1:39.0	podcast. After all you have Twitter for that. But our guest today Richard Fontaine told me over the weekend that he's
1:45.2	skeptical that these events reflect real cracks in Putin's rule. Now if you do follow the
1:51.1	conventional wisdom that is a contrarian take.
1:54.2	Many observers and analysts and historians are saying these are early signs of Putin's fall.
2:00.6	Richard does not agree, so I wanted to bring him on the podcast and hop on for a
	...

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