Russia’s Accidental No-Good, Very Failed Coup

Summary

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Episode Overview

Title: Russia’s Accidental No-Good, Very Failed Coup
Podcast: The Political Scene | The New Yorker
Host: David Remnick
Guests: Masha Gessen (author, expert on Putin’s Russia), Joshua Yaffa (war correspondent, Wagner Group specialist)
Date: July 3, 2023

The episode explores the aftermath and deeper meanings of Yevgeny Prigozhin’s short-lived armed mutiny in Russia—the so-called “failed coup”—and what it reveals about the current state of Vladimir Putin’s regime. Remnick is joined by Masha Gessen and Joshua Yaffa, both veteran Russia analysts, to dig into why the coup happened, how it unfolded, and what it says about power, information, and instability in contemporary Russia.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Prigozhin’s Intentions and the Failed Mutiny

[01:17–05:38]

• Improvisation and Motivation:
  Prigozhin “was making it up as he went along,” posits Joshua Yaffa, stressing the absence of a clear plan to topple Putin.
  • His move was less about seizing power, more about forcing Putin into a direct negotiation regarding the Wagner Group’s fate.
  • “He really thought...that he could send his mercenary force across the border...and somehow that would convince Putin to engage him in a conversation about...the future status of Wagner.” – Joshua Yaffa [03:46]
• Bizarre Power Play:
  Masha Gessen likens the spectacle to a mafia “sit-down,” unmasking Russia’s political monopoly on force as more brittle than it seemed.
  • “There’s an entire generation who’ve grown up without ever having seen anything like that...Russians got to see it. And it’s shocking to the eye and the ear.” – Masha Gessen [05:41]

2. Putin’s Monopoly on Power and Its Erosion

[05:38–08:34]

• Myth of Absolute Control:
  The discussion emphasizes the regime’s construction as “Putin Incorporated.”
  • "Putin’s power depends on a kind of myth of power, an aura...there’s no one else who can settle these disputes...almost Zeus-like.” – Joshua Yaffa [07:32]
• Repercussions:
  The mutiny accelerates conversations in Moscow about “what comes next,” though neither guest predicts an imminent successful coup.

3. Possible Reactions from Putin: Escalation and Crackdown

[08:34–12:13]

• Escalation in Ukraine:
  Discussion of fears Putin might double down militarily, even risking catastrophic actions (mention of nuclear options, [08:51]).
  • “The options there are horrifying...because he is not...equipped to escalate conventionally…We're talking about something like blowing up the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant or using tactical nuclear weapons.” – Masha Gessen [08:54]
• Domestic Repression:
  Gessen believes a more intense information crackdown is likely, though not a mass purge of the elite, given the regime’s fragility during war.
  • “What I think is gonna happen is...he’s going to jail more poets and theatre directors. Right. There’s going to be...an information crackdown because he’s very upset that people saw this.” – Masha Gessen [09:21]
• How Russians Learned About the Mutiny:
  Despite heavy propaganda, apps like Telegram created cracks through which Russians accessed real-time updates.
  • “One of the main ways that people get information...state approved and independent...is through Telegram channels.” – Masha Gessen [10:32]

4. The Limits of Repression and Future Power Struggles

[12:13–14:27]

• Putin’s Dilemmas:
  Yaffa stresses that war complicates old patterns of repression.
  • “Russian politics...was ruled by a kind of air of almost make believe...those sorts of games don't work on the battlefield of a real war...” – Joshua Yaffa [12:38]
  • Putin faces few good conventional options, and the Prigozhin “problem” is fading as Prigozhin himself exits the stage.
• Appetite for Truth:
  Prigozhin resonated not by his character, but by speaking “plain, honest” truths about the war’s horrors—something the regime no longer provides.
  • “There’s a real demand for the truth...He spoke to Russians in a plain, honest way, told them the real horrors and cost of the war. And that’s what Russians don’t get.” – Joshua Yaffa [15:03]

5. Contradictions in Prigozhin’s Message

[16:11–17:49]

• Prigozhin’s Framing:
  Remnick notes Prigozhin surprised by denouncing the war’s pretenses even as he remained a “war hero” to some.
  • Gessen clarifies: Prigozhin blamed bad information, not the war itself. He argued the Kremlin was misled, without truly condemning the invasion:
    • “He didn’t denounce the war for a second. Right. What he said was that Putin had been given bad information...” – Masha Gessen [16:45]

6. Succession and What Comes Next

[17:49–21:01]

• No Plan B:
  Remnick asks about the so-called “clans” and possible succession. Both guests agree: chaos is the likeliest outcome, with no liberal result foreseen.
  • “There will be chaos. Nobody knows what happens next. There’s no succession plan. Putin has always acted as though he’s eternal.” – Masha Gessen [18:56]
• Ukraine as the Wild Card:
  Yaffa argues military outcomes this summer may have bigger effects than backroom political contest:
  • If Russia’s front collapses, Putin’s position could become untenable; if Ukraine stalls, Putin may spin it as a victory and prolong his rule.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Mafia Atmosphere:
  “It sounded like nothing more than a sit down in the Sopranos between members of two families.” – David Remnick [06:37]

• On Prigozhin’s Personal Fate:
  “If Prigozhin gets to...die in his own sheets or die in his own bed, that will be a real victory for him.” – Joshua Yaffa [14:38]

• On the Limits of Authoritarian Control:
  “Russian politics...was ruled by a kind of air of almost make believe...those sorts of games don't work on the battlefield of a real war...” – Joshua Yaffa [12:38]

• On Succession:
  “It’s going to be some sort of Putinism without Putin, but it’s not going to be Putinism.” – Masha Gessen [19:22]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Opening context, Remnick’s memories of 1991 coup: [01:17–02:59]
• Prigozhin’s motives & coup analysis (Yaffa, Gessen): [02:59–06:43]
• Nature of Russian power, breakdown of monopoly: [06:43–08:34]
• Possible Putin response (escalation, crackdown): [08:34–12:13]
• Information flows & the Russian public: [10:06–12:08]
• Prigozhin’s legacy, fading relevance: [12:13–14:38]
• Contradictions in Prigozhin’s war stance: [16:11–17:49]
• Kremlin “clans” & the unclear future: [17:49–21:01]

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Conclusion

The episode paints the mutiny not as a serious coup, but as a high-risk, desperate play by Prigozhin that nevertheless broke the aura of Putin’s omnipotence—a glimpse for Russians into the murky, clan-driven world beneath the Kremlin’s surface order. While Prigozhin likely fades as a force, the underlying fractures exposed in Russia’s power structure—and questions about what comes after Putin—have only deepened. What happens on the Ukrainian battlefield this summer, the hosts conclude, may shape Russia’s fate more than internal schemes or crackdowns.

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Transcript

[A]

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[B]

This is the political scene, and I'm David Remnant. Thirty some years ago, in August 1991, as a Russia correspondent for the Washington Post, I watched a coup unfold with tanks on the streets of Moscow. The coup was plotted by Soviet hardliners in the KGB and the military, and it aimed to force Mikhail Gorbachev from power. After three days, it failed, but history was made. The coup itself became yet another nail in the coffin of the old Soviet empire. So a lot of things were going through my mind a week ago as we watched a rogue commander's tanks seize control of a southern Russian city, a major city, and then race north for Moscow. Then it was over as quickly as it had begun. But its repercussions are just beginning to be felt in the Kremlin and throughout Russia. And to understand those repercussions, I'm talking with two of our contributors, Masha Gessen, who has written deeply about Putin's autocracy in Russia, and Joshua Yaffa, who's been covering the war in Ukraine. Josh has written on the Wagner Group, the mercenary army that was headed By Yevgeny Prigozhin. I spoke with Masha and Josh last week. What was Prigozhin thinking? This was. He now talks about it in terms of a protest, but hardly seems like the march on Washington. Rarely do protests involve tanks and armored personnel carriers. So what did he have in his head?

[C]

Not that I really have any idea, but nonetheless, not that you'd want to. That would be disappointing for all concerned. I'm gonna hazard a guess, and I hope an informed guess, which is that rather remarkably, to a large degree, I think Prigozhin was making it up as he went along, or rather, he had a certain idea when he started, and I'm convinced that idea was not to take power in Russia, not to overthrow Putin. And he was actually sincere when he said at the beginning he wasn't directing this mutiny, uprising, whatever you call it, against Putin. He was really trying to get Putin's attention. I mean, a pretty remarkable sort of insane way to get someone's attention, Right? March your private army across the border, take charge of a military headquarters, and sort of try and blackmail your interlocutor into speaking with you. But I think that that is what Prigozhin intended. He really thought, however crazy in hindsight, this idea is that he could send his mercenary force across the border from Ukraine, where they had been fighting, into Russia, take control of this very important military headquarters in Rostov in southern Russia, and that somehow that would convince Putin to engage him in a conversation about what progress Prigozhin really wanted, which is agreeing about the future status of Wagner, his mercenary group.

[B]

So it's like a marital spat in which you throw 16 dishes at your spouse's head to get their attention.

[D]

Exactly. And, you know, if you had tanks, you'd throw the tanks.

[C]

But you do, in certain arguments. Yes.

[D]

I agree. And I think that. And it's actually very important that not only was he not challenging Putin's hold on power, but he was strictly staying within this mythology that Putin makes all the decisions in Russia, and if he makes bad decisions, it's because someone has given him bad information.

[B]

Or the Tsar didn't know.

[D]

The Tsar didn't know. So, you know, so he was marching to Moscow to give Putin better information.

[B]

So, Masha, what are the political ramifications? What's been unmasked here, and how consequential is that?

[D]

Well, the bizarre thing that we've seen is we've seen people acting politically and people acting with force. Right. In a field that had been monopolized by Putin, Putin has over the course of his nearly 24 years in power monopolized all political space. And certainly his main claim to stability is a monopoly on force. And it turns out there's another option, not necessarily a better option, but this.

[B]

What's the option here?

[D]

I'm not convinced that Prigozhin is an option. Right. What I'm saying is that there is the option of having more than one actor in this space. And that's shocking to Russia. There's an entire generation of people who've grown up without ever having seen anything like that, without ever having seen even something like this bizarre conversation that looked most like a mafia sit down in what seems to be the courtyard of the headquarters of the Southern military district between Prigozhin and two generals with a Kalashnikov dangling between Prigozhin's legs and cramps. And they look like they're haggling over some criminal deal. And they sound like it, too. But it's an unscripted conversation about people who wield actual power. And Russians got to see it. And it's shocking to sort of. To the eye and the ear.

[B]

No. And it sounded like nothing more than a sit down in the Sopranos between members of two families.

[D]

I agree. What Russians saw over the weekend was that incredible exchange between Prigozhin and two generals, Shoigu's deputy and the deputy, a deputy of Valery Gerasimov, the head of the general staff. And Prigozhin says, I want Shoigu and Gerasimov. I want the two top military officials in the country. And one of their deputies says, take them. Sort of spreads his arms wide. And people saw that.

[B]

Josh, we often describe the regime in Moscow as a personalist regime, as Putin Incorporated, Kremlin Incorporated. Are people beginning to imagine what that looks like without the key player?

[C]

You know, I think the truth is that people have been imagining that for a while now, that there certainly is talk in Moscow about what comes next. And the events of this weekend absolutely will have accelerated that conversation. Putin's power depends on a kind of myth of power, an aura of power in which Putin is the. The ultimate arbiter of all of these clan factions that you talked about, that there's no one else who can settle these disputes. There's no one else who the different clans can go to and whose power they acknowledge as somehow being absolute, almost Zeus like. And they don't really question it. After last weekend, I think more people are going to start to question it. Like Masha. I'm not suggesting that that means Next weekend he's going to be overthrown in a coup that really works. No, it could happen next year, in two years or never. But I think that it's going to accelerate some conversations in Moscow about a future hypothetical transition of power.

[B]

Is it not possible that Putin, now in a rage and in a desire to reassert his authority, does two things? He doubles down in Ukraine best he can in the bloodiest way possible, and carries out a purge in Moscow?

[D]

I'm more inclined to believe that he escalates in Ukraine, if to the extent that he can. Right. I mean, the options there are horrifying. Right. Because he is not, it seems, equipped to escalate conventionally. Right. We're talking about something like blowing up the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant or using tactical nuclear weapons. Right.

[B]

It's the prospects which are now based.

[D]

Conveniently neighboring Belarus, right next to where Prigozhin's new compound.

[B]

It's very reassuring.

[D]

And I doubt that there's going to be a significant purge at home. I'm sure his paranoia is going to intensify. Part of what's kept him in power is his paranoia. He's always two steps ahead of whatever threat there is. And in fact, he's generally responded to the threats disproportionately. Right. He jails protesters who have no way of really challenging his power. He jails poets and theater directors. What I think is gonna happen is that he's going to jail more poets and theater directors. Right. There's going to be, I think, an information crackdown because he's very upset that people saw this.

[B]

Well, stop on that. To what extent did they see it? Because we've been hearing for a year and a half about the extent of the propaganda totalism in Moscow. And then unless you're a clever user of the Internet and VPN and all the rest, you're really watching state television. And the propaganda is intense. Do average Russians know what happened and to what extent, and did they react to it in any way?

[D]

I think average Russians know what happened for a couple of reasons. You know, one of the main ways that people get information, both state approved information and independent information, is through Telegram channels. And Telegram has the disadvantage of.

[B]

And Telegram, we should explain, is a messaging app that has lots of individual channels. And Prigozhin, in fact, used it among others.

[D]

Right. And I think that the Kremlin hasn't worried too much about Telegram. Well, partly because Telegram, as it turns out, is almost impossible to block because it has a very clever distribution system, and at the same time, you don't get channels that you can't imagine exist. So if you ask for it, you'll read independent media, but most people don't. And so it's a small enough crack in the propaganda monopoly for the Kremlin not to worry about it, except that when one of their own starts using it, Prigozhin was somebody that pro war, pro Kremlin, anti Ukrainian, really rabid nationalist Russians were listening and watching and reading, and suddenly this comes out on Prigozhin's channel. This kind of thing, I think, really unnerves Putin and destabilizes his basic ideas about how information space works. So I think, you know, really extreme measures are possible, up to just shutting.

[B]

Off the Internet, just shutting it down.

[D]

Yeah, that's very easy. And it's the only way to really get rid of. Telegram.

[B]

Josh, you agree?

[C]

Yes, though all of this is made more difficult by the fact that Russia is at war, a war entirely of Putin's choice. But that makes the circumstances in which he's trying to navigate this political moment much more difficult and unlike anything he's faced previously. Russian politics, you both have written about this so well and so extensively for 20 plus years, was ruled by a kind of air of almost make believe. Russia was the ultimate postmodern autocracy in which everything was done as a kind of winking, cynical, almost pretend game. And when you had to carry out repressions, as Masha said, you targeted people like poets and theater directors who it wasn't so hard for your security apparatus to go after. Well, those sorts of games don't work on the battlefield of a real war, a real war that I think it's fair to say. Putin has staked his legacy, too, and his political survival, maybe personal survival, to the outcome of this war. And that limits what Putin can do in terms of a crackdown. What can he do? Can he really purge the army? Can he really carry out measures that would impact Russia's ability to, to, to wage the war in Ukraine? As Masha said, there aren't really a whole lot of good conventional options left for Russia anyway. And so I just don't know what really Putin can, can do at this point. And it's not so much about his Prigozhin problem. I don't really think Putin has a Prigozhin problem per se. Prigozhin, by all accounts, has already left Russia, reports that he's arrived to Belarus. Will he stay there? Will he travel onward? I don't know, but I think The Prigozhin phenomenon as it is narrowly or personally defined is, if not over, at least kind of now, fading relevance. And I think Russians will quickly move on and the story will move on.

[B]

Does Prigozhin get to keep any access to his soldiers, or is just Prigozhin going to Minsk and maybe they'll send him a nice savings account and a life insurance policy?

[C]

We'll see. I mean, I think if Prigozhin gets to, as the old saying about Bolsheviks goes, you know, die in his own sheets or die in his own bed, that will be a real victory for him. I think if he can get that, he'll have come out ahead from this whole story. I don't think Putin will allow Prigozhin to have another go at assembling a private army, even if it's in neighboring Belarus. But it almost doesn't matter. The deeper processes that Prigozhin has not necessarily unleashed, but rather, I think, brought to the surface, are going to remain. And what he's revealed is there's a huge appetite, however, strangely. Right. I mean, in other words, I say that sarcastically. This could have been predicted. This happens in any society. There's a real demand for the truth, essentially. And I think that that's what made Prigozhin so, in a way, I don't know, I don't even wanna say popular, but it's what made his message resonate with people. He's vile, he's nasty, he's a war criminal. I don't mean to paint at all a rosy picture of him, but he. He spoke to Russians in a plain, honest way, told them the real horrors and cost of the war. And that's what Russians don't get. Exactly. Putin lost that ability to waste them in the outhouse, as Putin said about Chechens 20 plus years ago. Right. Crude, awful, uncouth language. Putin has kind of lost himself, I think, in the palace halls a long time ago. And Prigozhin has a way of speaking to the people.

[B]

But Prigozhin didn't just talk about the incompetence of the Russian army. What he did in the latter days of this drama, and this is what stunned me, because it seemed contradictory from a soldier of the war. He came out and said the war itself was nonsense, that it's being fought under false pretenses. It didn't have to happen. So on the one hand, he's a war hero to some, and on the other hand, he's denouncing the war in incredibly bold language that Surprised me.

[D]

There's an interesting logical construction there because he didn't actually say. He didn't denounce the war for a second. Right. What he said was that Putin had been given bad information on the basis of which he started the war. NATO wasn't going to attack Russia, Ukraine wasn't going to attack Russia. Putin was misinformed. He didn't actually draw the conclusion from that, that the war shouldn't be fought. As far as Prigozhin is concerned, everything, you know, every war is valid. The more we take, the better. Right. In his post failed unintentional coup attempt address, he talked about how, hey, when we fought in Africa, we were told we should take more of Africa, and then, you know, we didn't get enough. Right. Like, I mean, that's sort of his logic. But he also pointed out that in the space of one day, he traversed as much distance as there is from the eastern border, border of Ukraine to the western border of Ukraine. And so if he'd been allowed to run the war effort, they would have taken Ukraine in a day.

[B]

Now, here's a kind of question that's straight out of the 1960s Kremlinology Handbook, but it is a question that is going to arise. We might as well dig in on it right away. Putin's been in power for 23 and.

[D]

A half years, something like that, almost 24.

[B]

And there are all these what we call clans that are not just big institutions, but they're clans within institutions. There are clans within the fsb, the successor to the kgb. There are clans within the Interior Ministry and the military and the government apparatus. The great liberal hope is wasting away in jail. Alexei Navalny, he's. By all reports, Putin seems to want him to not only die, but maybe be in horrible pain and suffer a great deal before that happens. And he's not the only one. Vladimir Karamuza and others join him in prison. What are the main clans? What could succeed Putin when and if Masha.

[D]

There will be chaos. Nobody knows what happens next. There's no succession plan. Putin has always acted as though he's eternal. And also nobody knows what the best way to grab and wield power would be. But I think that whoever comes to power after Putin, it's not going to be Alexei Navalny in the immediate future. It's not going to be anybody who articulates liberal values. It's going to be some sort of Putinism without Putin, but it's not going to be Putinism.

[C]

Josh, I think that what the Vassu the armed forces of Ukraine can do or not do this summer is actually maybe the biggest political X factor for Putin. And what they are able to do or not this summer, I think could have huge political resonance in Russia and for Putin, more than perhaps the machinations of political players or wannabe political players back in Moscow. And if on the one extreme, the Russian front line collapses, the forces are demoralized, the Ukrainian army, backed by NATO equipment, Western training, proves too formidable and marches across the whole of the front, maybe even all the way to Crimea. That creates a political reality for Putin that I don't know exactly how he survives that or would certainly set in motion a whole series of events that I think could even overshadow the events of last weekend if somehow the opposite of that happens. And by the fall, Ukraine hasn't advanced more than a few kilometers, no significant territory has been recaptured. And as a result, the west begins to pressure Ukraine to make some kind of negotiated settlement. Then at home, at least, he can sell that as a kind of victory. It would be harder for his enemies to mobilize. And I think he can, you know, eke out a number, you know, x more years in power.

[B]

You can read both Joshua Yaffa and Masha Gessen on the war in Ukraine and much [e-mail] I spoke with Masha and Josh last week.

[E]

I'm Katie Drummond. I'm Wired's Global Editorial director.

[C]

I'm Michael Kollory, Wired's Director of Consumer, Tech and Culture.

[E]

And I'm Lauren Good. I'm a senior correspondent at Wired. And our show Uncanny Valley is about the people, power and influence of Silicon Valley. And right now, Silicon Valley and Washington have never been more intertwined. So each week we get together to talk about a big story, often at the intersection of tech and politics.

[D]

Right.

[C]

So whether we're talking about Trump, Coin Doge, or Elon Musk, we will always explain how these Silicon Valley forces are.

[E]

Affecting Washington and how they affect you. Make sure you're following Uncanny Valley in your podcast app of choice so you don't miss an episode.

[D]

From prx.