The Putin Mastermind Myth Has Been Brutally Exposed

Images of a bare-chested Vladimir Putin on horseback were once Kremlin attempts to cultivate an image of a strongman leader in control of all he surveys. However, faced by military setbacks in Ukraine and a mutiny, his hold on the reins of authority now seems less assured.

Before his full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Putin's reputation globally was that of a strategic mastermind, who always knew how to play his hand well.

In 2008, a five-day war in Georgia in which Moscow-backed South Ossetia declared independence from Tbilisi, as did Abkhazia, announced Russia's reemergence as a military power. Six years later, he annexed Crimea to domestic acclaim and international outrage without firing a shot and getting only a tepid response from the West.

It started the war in the Donbas and led to his full-scale invasion of Ukraine, but not before he had intervened in the Middle East. "Checkmating Western designs in Syria and propping up Bashar al Assad made him look like some kind of geopolitical strategist," Khatuna Mshvidobadze, a professorial lecturer of cyber security at the George Washington University, told Newsweek.

"However, in the war in Donbas, he bit off more than he could chew. Even with the suppression of information in Russia, clearly things are not going well, and people are noticing."

After eight years of conflict in eastern Ukraine, Putin reportedly believed the full-scale invasion of Ukraine would see Kyiv seized in a matter of days. Now 17 months on, the war has cost Russia tens of thousands of troops, hurt the economy and raised the prospect that his inner circle may turn on him.

Retreats of Russian troops last year from the Kherson and Kharkiv oblasts delivered damaging PR blows to the mystique of Putin's military prowess.

Also, mystery still surrounds the biggest challenge to his authority so far in his 23-year presidency when Yevgeny Prigozhin's Wagner Group of mercenaries, seized military facilities in Rostov-on-Don and marched on Moscow with little resistance. The Kremlin said the mutiny had been stood down but Prigozhin faced no apparent punishment.

"Putin has emerged from the crisis weakened," Tom Roberts, assistant professor of Russian, East European & Eurasian Studies at Smith College, Northampton (MA), told Newsweek.

"There were no signs of public support for the president as the mutiny unfolded, while the two armed columns of Wagner fighters did not elicit a strong military response from the Russian Armed Forces."

The Kremlin has tight control over the messaging about the war, which is officially referred to as a "special military operation," and dissent can result in a lengthy jail term for Russian citizens.

But that control did not apply to Prigozhin, whose dizzyingly vertical rise from convict to billionaire Putin whisperer spearheading Moscow's bid for Bakhmut was down to his close links with the president. Prigozhin repeatedly screeched at Russia's military establishment for its conduct in the war, in particular defense minister Sergei Shoigu and campaign commander Valery Gerasimov.

The day before his rebellion, Prigozhin issued a video message claiming Russian forces had targeted his fighters and rubbished Putin's reasons for going to war, such as claims about Ukrainian aggression. "Prigozhin's lengthy video justifying his 'march for justice' expressed many truths about the war that Putin would not want the public to hear," Hamilton College assistant professor of government David Rivera told Newsweek.

Before Prigozhin called his troops off, valuable Russian military aircraft were downed IN Wagner's march on Moscow, and Putin had reportedly left Moscow, adding further weight to the theory that the Russian president had lost control.

"We have seen throughout the course of the war that Putin is not concerned about the lives of others, but he needs all the soldiers and military equipment he has for his war," Mark Temnycky, an Atlantic Council nonresident fellow, told Newsweek.

The Wagner mutiny "led to the destruction of additional aircraft and the loss of more soldiers," he said, "that does not favor Putin's ambitions."

Subsequent public appearances by Putin were seen as attempts to portray it was business as usual for the Russian president, while Russian state media outlets have changed tack from lauding Wagner's combat capabilities to condemning their treachery.

"Not only is the military falling apart," said Diane Nemec Ignashev, professor of Russian & the Liberal Arts at Carleton College, "the Kremlin's propagandists are losing their grip."