Save Putin, save the world

The rebellion against Russia by the mercenary Wagner group led by Yevgeny Prigozhin has been aborted, but let us not be deceived: We are on the brink of a nuclear abyss. Prigozhin committed many errors in his aborted coup in June, but his biggest mistake was marching on Moscow. He could have marched on to Russia’s stockpiles of nuclear weapons and seized several warheads instead.

When a tyrant is in his death throes, the sycophants surrounding him become vultures, making it easy for those planning to seize power to co-opt them. The nuclear weapons in Russia (and probably in other countries with a similar arsenal) are guarded by a small security detail from the Ministry of Interior that is designed to thwart seizure by a small group of terrorists. To guard against an invading force of thousands like the Wagner group will, however, require the deployment of regular army units. That is the problem. Putin not only has an army that does not want to fight the Ukrainians but also the internal enemies of his regime.

In fact, Putin’s power has been diminished because one of the major pillars of Kremlin rule, the military, has become indifferent in its support. To transform this army and get its support will be a mission impossible. Time will be against him because soon at least 50,000 disgruntled ex-convicts — the former Wagner fighters — with extensive combat experience will be roaming Russia, with those aspiring for power able to avail of their services. As noted, the Russian Army will not do its part. A possible nuclear conflict in Russia thus becomes a possibility, with massive collateral damage to the rest of the world.

Strangely, the best person who can prevent this nuclear holocaust is Vladimir Putin. All he has to do is restore democratic rule in Russia. A popularly elected Russian government ruling by consensus would be the best guardian of the 6,000 nuclear warheads in Russia’s arsenal. Such government will easily command the support of the Russian military and other sectors.

The prerequisite to Russia’s democratization is the termination of the war in Ukraine. The indifference shown by Russian Army units to the Wagner takeover of Rostov-on-Don and the cheering by civilians of the Wagner fighters reveals a widespread disdain for this war.

In World War I, after the initial signs of unrest in St. Petersburg, two sets of rulers, Tsar Nicholas II and then the cadets under Alexander Kerensky, had a chance to withdraw from the war. Both officials failed to do so for fear of a severe peace treaty that the Germans would impose. Vladimir Lenin meanwhile thought that the Russian people were so fed up with the war, they would welcome peace at any cost. The Bolsheviks, a minority party, thus managed to seize power.

There is no such constraint now in terminating the Ukrainian war. A ceasefire in place to halt fighting will not deviate too much from the boundaries before the invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022. The Korean War in 1953 ended in this manner.

By now, Putin should have noted from Russian history the fate of tyrants who overstay in power. Tsar Nicholas II and his family met a violent death in the 1917 revolution despite ample opportunities to avoid this fate. A wave of democratization swept Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries, with most monarchs who ruled under the divine rights theory, voluntarily ceding their powers to popularly elected parliaments. Russia’s tsars had three chances to do so as well: in the uprisings in 1892, 1905, and 1917, but as Russian historians noted, they were “too hard-headed and too dumb to recognize the lessons of history.”

Putin must have also recognized the irony of his “special military operations” in Ukraine. His goal was to resurrect the defunct Soviet Union and its status as a superpower, but the performance of his military instead exposed Russia as a third-rate power. Mikhail Gorbachev, whom he had endlessly criticized, at least salvaged an intact Russia from the implosion of the Soviet Union. Putin, on the other hand, could end up splitting Russia into several small nations.

Dictators do not admit their mistakes. However, it is worth a try for Western leaders to convince Putin that by restoring democratic rule in Russia and advancing world peace, he’s also saving his life. The West has plenty of carrots to offer him, including lifting the debilitating sanctions imposed on Russia. It’s worth a try to save mankind.

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Hermenegildo C. Cruz is a career ambassador with a graduate degree in Sovietology. He served in Moscow during the reform era under Mikhail Gorbachev.