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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. There's at least one new major development this morning in the aftermath of the mutiny attempt, mutiny insurrection, we'll see what David Remnick wants to call it, in Russia over the weekend. Basically Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner Group who led this insurrection or whatever it is, has released an 11-minute voice recording posted on social media this morning. From what I'm seeing, he says the action was a protest. It was not meant to institute regime change.

He said they stopped the action to protect Russian soldiers lives, but they were triggered because his troops were being hit with Russian missiles and helicopters, I guess in Ukraine. Let's get David Remnick's take on that. Besides being editor of The New Yorker and host of the New Yorker Radio Hour, he is also the author of several books on Russia including, Lenin's Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire and Resurrection: The Struggle for a New Russia. Hi, David. Thanks for coming on on short notice this morning.

David Remnick: You've bet. Good to talk to you.

Brian Lehrer: Did Prigozhin clear anything up to your ear this morning? There were so many questions about why did they do this? What were their real goals? What happens now?

David Remnick: [laughs] I'm glad he didn't call it a dinner party. I think when your tanks, and military vehicles, and your thousands of troops seize military headquarters in Rostov and then head toward Moscow, even Vladimir Putin can be excused for thinking of it as aggressive, and perilous, and humiliating, and embarrassing as it turns out.

Brian Lehrer: No clue.

David Remnick: Look, Prigozhin until very very recently, always aimed his criticism and stated in the plainest and most obscene language possible at the military leadership, at the defense secretary, at the Chief of Staff and so on, not at Putin specifically. Putin is the head of the government that employs the defense secretary, and the Chief of Staff, and the military establishment. Putin created Prigozhin, and Prigozhin in many ways comes from the Putin playbook, which is to say he's a street kid from Leningrad who--

Prigozhin spent nine years in jail for robbing apartments, and then began making money selling hot dogs at a flea market, and then got into restaurants. His real opportunities and the way he became powerful and rich was because he had a great patron in Vladimir Putin. Then in many ways, Putin tried to control him, and employ him, and exploit him, and then he was turned on. Very simple.

Brian Lehrer: Turned on how? How did Putin turn on Prigozhin before Prigozhin turned his troops on Putin?

David Remnick: Prigozhin first. Prigozhin, in the wake of Crimea, started something called the Wagner Group, as we all now know, which is a mercenary military group that's meant to supplement, and supply, and work with the Russian military everywhere around the world, from the Central African Republic to Syria and now Ukraine. It turned out the Wagner Group in Ukraine, it was in some ways more effective than regular army troops. Prigozhin also has a big mouth. He would get on Telegram, the messaging app, and he would scream and yell about how badly the Russian army was doing, and accuse them of all sorts of noncooperation and then treachery.

He began to become popular, and he was very well aware of his own growing popularity. Prigozhin's name started to come up as a potential successor to Putin, who after all has been in power for 23 years. He, in a sense, got too big for his britches and marched on Moscow, and midway through decided probably quite rightly that that was a terrible idea and got into negotiations because Putin wouldn't do it himself with the President of Belarus. Those negotiations were apparently--

Brian Lehrer: Who's a Putin ally, right?

David Remnick: Not just an ally, but a tody to Putin. Belarus is treated by Russia and by Putin as a vassal state. They negotiated this settlement in which Prigozhin-- Now remember, Prigozhin is incredibly rich, has all kinds of houses and all the things, the [unintelligible 00:05:08] of people who become incredibly rich in Russia these days. Now, it seems that he's going to have to move to Minsk, which is a decidedly less glamorous place than Moscow and the various other places that Prigozhin planted himself.

Brian Lehrer: Let me ask you-- Oh, go ahead. Finish your thought, sorry.

David Remnick: He's now a diminished figure. In a way everybody lost. Prigozhin lost, Putin looks unmasked and weak. This has been one catastrophe after another, above all for the Ukrainian people because so many people have died. Politically, Putin by declaring war on Ukraine, now finds himself at war with Ukraine, which isn't going well, at war with the West, and now it seems in opposition to or at war with political factions within his own country.

Brian Lehrer: Two things about Ukraine that I want to bring up. First, part of the story is that Prigozhin seems to have set out loud that it was a lie when Putin tried to justify the war by saying Ukrainian troops were Nazis looking to attack Russia. What did Prigozhin say?

David Remnick: That was shocking because Prigozhin until that moment, until very, very recently, all his criticism was of the quality of the Russian invasion, of the quality of the decision-making by Moscow and the defense minister and the rest. The other day preceding this, you're calling it a coup, whatever it was, he then questioned the war itself, which he's been fighting in for a year and a half. That was shocking.

Another after effect of this catastrophe for Putin is that it becomes clear that the people know a lot more about what's been happening than sometimes we give them credit for it, despite the propaganda state they have. As was demonstrated on the streets of Donetsk, the people have no great support for Putin. They want to live their lives. They live completely apart from and alienated from politics. There's no great rallying around Vladimir Putin today.

Brian Lehrer: Maybe the most striking thing to me in the analysis that I've seen over the last couple of days is that Ukraine could potentially now start using the grievances that the rebelling troops have articulated at this revolt, and the exposing of that lie to try to go message all the Russian soldiers still in Ukraine to try to demoralize them and get them to question, whether the mission is worth the risk if Putin is mistreating them that badly as Prigozhin says, and whether Putin has the power anymore to punish them if they refuse in large numbers to fight. Maybe that's a path to ending this invasion. Do you think there's anything there? Is it crazily optimistic? What do you think?

David Remnick: It's possible although it's quite demonstrable since the beginning of the war how demoralized the Russian troops are anyway. Nevertheless, they've been able to wreak enormous destruction in Ukraine, no matter how demoralized they are. They've been able to carry out horrible atrocities across Ukraine. Putin still retains the power to punish in the most severe way.

I find it unbelievably striking that Alexei Navalny and Vladimir Kara-Murza, two political dissidents, to say nothing Evan Gershkovich, a reporter of all things from The Wall Street Journal, languish in prison while Yevgeny Prigozhin who attempted to march on Moscow gets off scot free and gets to live in Minsk.

Brian Lehrer: Right, and goes in to exile safely.

David Remnick: I don't think any life insurance companies are going to take out another big policy.

Brian Lehrer: [laughs] I hear you. You're right. If he ends up dead through some agent of Putin in Minsk, it makes a point to the next person who wants to try something. We know Putin has done things like that to people before. You anticipated my next question by bringing up Evan Gershkovich because if Putin was weaker, does it give any new hope for the freedom of Gershkovich or any other American being held as hostages on under phony criminal pretenses by Putin's regime? Does it make it any less likely? Again, just looking at potential impact on America that Putin will successfully get a lot of disinformation into the social media ecosystem during next year's presidential campaign when he will presumably, again, want to support a Republican over Biden because they're friendlier to him?

David Remnick: The real answer, and it's not the answer that journalists are supposed to give is I don't know because if you're trying to guess what's in the most obscure black box in this universe, which is the space inside of Vladimir Putin's head, it is entirely possible that the opposite happens. In other words, now that he's embarrassed and humiliated, he needs to assert strength, and so he becomes even more severe on all of the issues that you mentioned. That's something to be on-- Obviously, there's much greater confusion in Moscow, diversion and all the rest.

This has exposed all kinds of fissures in the Russian political establishment, but remember, there's no real politics there. What politics you have is completely personal. All political arrangements and relationships are based on relationships with the tsar, with the president, with Putin. It would take an extraordinary act of courage or heedlessness like Prigozhin's to act against Putin at this moment, even though he's weak.

Brian Lehrer: Prigozhin, even as he fled, from what I've read, sent his troops from this mercenary group that's doing business with Putin back into Ukraine. Are they there again and fighting? If so, what must they think?

David Remnick: First of all, never underestimate the degree of chaos going on here, and disorganization, and one hand not talking to the other. Also, don't underestimate the crucial role that the Wagner Group played in the Russian effort against Ukraine. They proved to be some of the most effective troops available to Russia, which is why Putin tolerated this bifurcated effort.

A lot of this struggle that happened in the last week, something that's been underplayed, I think even in our media, is that as of July 1st, the Wagner Group and all other mercenaries were supposed to sign contracts with the Russian army. That is to make sure that they were under the control of the defense ministry in Moscow. Needless to say, Prigozhin was not enchanted with that decision, and that was part of his motivation for rebelling.

Brian Lehrer: Listener asks, "Is it possible that this was a false flag operation? Putin just moved tactical nukes to Belarus." According to what this listener thinks has happened, Prigozhin could launch weapons from there. Too farfetched?

David Remnick: I think it is. Prigozhin has no access to nuclear weapons or nuclear decision-making.

Brian Lehrer: What happens now?

David Remnick: I do think the nuclear threat, unfortunately is not something that we should dismiss so easily. That the potential use of tactical nuclear weapons is something that Putin himself has rhetorically put on the table at [unintelligible 00:13:22]

Brian Lehrer: Because if he is weaker now, then he's more likely to take that desperate step than he was two days ago?

David Remnick: I don't know what effect the last two days would have on making that step. I just don't know.

Brian Lehrer: David Remnick-- By the way, David, I love when guests say, "I don't don't know," because it's so refreshingly honest instead of just faking it.

David Remnick: [laughs] How many times have we watched television and some reporter just intuits what's in the mind of, whether it's the President of the United States or the President of Russia. I just think it's just not a public service.

Brian: David Remnick, Editor of The New Yorker, Host of The New Yorker Radio Hour, and author of books on Russia, including Lenin's Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire and Resurrection: The Struggle for a New Russia. David, thank you for hopping on with us. We really appreciate it.

David Remnick: Always a pleasure, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: That's the Brian Lehrer Show for today, produced by Mary Croke, Lisa Allison, Amina Srna, Carl Boisrond, and Esperanza Rosenbaum. Zach Gottehrer-Cohen produces our daily politics podcast. We had Juliana Fonda at the audio controls. Stay tuned for Alison.

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