After mutiny against Putin, Russian friends have reason to hedge bets

Even before Russia’s President Vladimir V. Putin broke his public silence on Monday about the aborted mutiny that brought rogue states within 125 miles of Moscow, he was on the phone with the leaders of Iran, Qatar and other friendly countries to express their support as they presumably promise a return to stability.

For Mr Putin, who has compiled a surprisingly solid list of countries that support his war against Ukraine or have remained neutral, it was a much-needed show of mutual reassurance. Russia’s message, it seemed, was business as usual in foreign policy, even after last weekend’s alarming events.

Shocked as they were by an armed uprising in a nuclear-weapon state, Russia’s friends and business associates are unlikely to abandon Putin, diplomats and analysts said. The most likely scenario, they say, is that they hedge their bets against further Russian instability.

“I’m not surprised at all these public statements,” said Michael A. McFaul, a former US ambassador to Russia. “It’s not in our interest or anyone else’s to bring things to a head. But privately, if your goal is stability, then you should be concerned about Putin’s ability to provide this stability.”

Mr. McFaul said Yevgeny V. Prigozhin’s uprising presented Ukraine and its allies with another chance to convince foreign leaders, from Beijing to Brasília, that supporting Russia or remaining neutral was the wrong bet.

But to prove it, they will have to prevail over a complex web of motives on the part of leaders who have aligned themselves with Russia, whether they be ideologically, strategically, commercially or even – as in the case of a few – simple complacency. are. conservation.

China, Putin’s main patron, sees Russia as a linchpin in its campaign to curb the United States’ global ambitions. While President Xi Jinping has not spoken to Putin since the crisis, China’s foreign ministry on Monday reaffirmed its support for Russia, calling it a “friendly neighbor and comprehensive strategic coordination partner for the new era”.

That came a day after Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Rudenko met in Beijing with China’s Foreign Minister Qin Gang as part of a visit that appeared to have been planned before the uprising. The meeting was publicized by Chinese state media, which said the two men discussed the “Ukraine crisis” among other things.

“Xi’s worst-case scenario is a weak Putin who loses the war and is eventually impeached,” said Evan S. Medeiros, a professor of Asian studies at Georgetown University. “A weak Russia denies China an ally in its competition with the US and, perhaps worse, leaves Xi isolated globally and under pressure from democracies.”

But public support for Russia was preceded by hints of personal frustration in Beijing that Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has left China in an increasingly difficult position. China has said it will not take sides in the war, even though it remains Russia’s main diplomatic and economic benefactor, and that difficult stance has seriously strained China’s ties with Europe.

That has led China to distance itself a bit from Russia by arranging a phone call between Mr Xi and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine and proposing general principles for a peace process, including condemning the use of nuclear weapons and calls for respect for sovereignty.

“I think you could start seeing more of that hedging and signaling,” said John Culver, a former US intelligence analyst on China.

The same mix of public support and private doubt is apparent in the Middle East, where Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states have overlooked Russia’s war on Ukraine as they increasingly viewed Putin as an alternative source of security in an unstable region where the United States is seen as retreating.

Russia has played that role since 2015, when its army intervened in the Syrian civil war. Putin’s support for Syria’s autocratic leader Bashar al-Assad was not lost on Arab leaders, who contrasted it with what they saw as President Barack Obama’s abandonment of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

A parade of wave leaders has called Putin in recent days, from the Emir of Qatar and the President of the United Arab Emirates to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia. The Saudi leader on Tuesday expressed support for Russia’s “steps to defend the constitutional order,” according to the Kremlin.

That’s a predictable response from a fellow autocrat, but it obscures tensions between Saudi Arabia and Russia. The two countries had once worked together to keep oil prices as high as possible, but now Russia is aggressively selling oil at reduced rates, even as Saudi Arabia tries to jack up the price.

“The bottom line is they thought they could balance an unreliable United States with a more reliable Russia,” said Martin S. Indyk, the senior Lowy fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. “And now they face an even more unreliable and potentially unstable Russia.”

How Putin deals with the aftermath of the uprising will also have an effect on the perception of his status. Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who spoke with Putin on Saturday while Wagner troops were still marching on Moscow, responded to a 2016 coup attempt by carrying out large-scale purges of dissidents.

Putin has so far refrained from retaliating, although, as McFaul pointed out, he has already effectively carried out an Erdogan-esque crackdown in Russia by shutting down newspapers and jailing opponents like Alexei Navalny.

For some countries, such as Israel, the calculations can be fiendishly complicated. As a US ally under pressure to support Ukraine, Israel has been loath to antagonize Putin over Russia’s military presence in Syria. It depends on Russia’s agreement if Israel wants to attack Iranian-allied forces there.

But Russia’s preoccupation with the war in Ukraine has made it less focused on Syria, which analysts say has allayed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s concerns about showing more support to Ukraine.

It was significant, said Mr. Indyk, a former US ambassador to Israel, that reports emerged over the weekend of the Wagner uprising in Jerusalem that Mr. Netanyahu was considering a visit to the Ukrainian capital Kiev.

There was much less ambiguity in Iran, which is linked to Russia by oil, arms sales and a related sense of global isolation. Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi spoke to Putin on Monday to offer “his full support,” according to a Kremlin reading of the call. Iran announced that its chief of police, Brig. General Ahmadreza Radan was to travel to Moscow at the invitation of Russian officials to expand security cooperation, including fighting organized crime.

In some ways, a weakened Mr. Putin benefits Iran, Mr. Indyk said, because it makes him more dependent on the drones and missiles Tehran has funneled into Russia. It also gives Iran more free rein in Syria, where it joins Russia in supporting Mr al-Assad.

But even in Tehran, there were scattered voices calling for a reassessment of the relationship in the wake of Mr Prigozhin’s mutiny.

“Wagner’s story was a warning to Iran,” said Elahe Koolaee, a former lawmaker and Russia expert at Tehran University. “Instead of relying on the East, Iran should start working on strengthening its relations with the West.”

For some countries, such as India, there are major economic consequences associated with recalibrating relations with Russia. Since the start of the war in Ukraine, India, which remains neutral in the conflict, has become one of the largest buyers of Russian oil, benefiting from a price cap imposed on Russian oil exports by the United States and its allies.

During his recent state visit to Washington, Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India made little sign of his intention to abandon that policy. Diplomats said President Biden, eager to bring India closer to the United States in its geopolitical rivalry with China, was not pressuring Mr Modi too much with Ukraine.

For some countries, the immediate question is not only whether Russia will be less trustworthy, but also what kind of future the Wagner Group will have globally, given the exile of its boss, Mr. Prigozhin, in neighboring Belarus.

In Mali, for example, Wagner mercenaries have fought against anti-government militants. With the departure of the peacekeepers of France and the United Nations, these mercenaries have become crucial in keeping the government in power. Malian officials have yet to comment on the crisis in Russia, highlighting their dilemma.

Mali’s dependence on Russia became apparent in February when it was one of only seven countries – including Belarus and North Korea – to vote against a United Nations resolution demanding that Russian troops withdraw from Ukraine.

“There is a real paradox for Putin,” said Mr. McFaul, who teaches at Stanford University. “Where Wagner has been extremely important is in enabling Russia to exert influence around the world. If Putin doesn’t have that, his ability to appear influential is diminished.”

Reporting contributed by Ivan Nechepurenko in Tbilisi, Georgia, Chris Buckley in Taipei, Taiwan, David Pierson in Hong Kong, and Farnaz Fassihi in New York City.