Please join us on Tuesday, 22 October for a discussion with Anna Arutunyan and Mark Galeotti about Downfall: Prigozhin, Putin, and the New Fight for the Future of Russia (Ebury Press, 2024), their new book about the gangster-turned-warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin. Drawing on years of research, the book traces the life of this infamous man and examines the political climate that facilitated his rise to power and theatrical downfall.
Early in his life, Yevgeny Prigozhin realised there were no material incentives in living honestly. After a stint in prison, he went into business at a time when symbiotic relationships were developing between shady private enterprise and the KGB. When the Kremlin started outsourcing its more unpalatable activities to private actors looking for cash and influence, he started as an “informational hitman for hire”, before founding the Wagner mercenary group.
But as he gained power and money behind the scenes, Prigozhin was angered that he could not take credit for his “achievements”: he would never be one of the elite on whom Putin really depended. The tables turned in summer 2022, when Prigozhin was publicly honoured by Putin for Wagner’s involvement in the war in Ukraine. He used his newfound public status to rail against the political and military elite, eventually spiralling into the theatrical armed rebellion of June 2023 and his subsequent death in a mysterious plane crash.
Through the story of Prigozhin, Arutunyan and Galeotti shed light on a wider archetype of opportunistic individuals, willing to carry out all manner of immoral activities as they scrabble for Putin’s personal favour. They also reveal growing cracks in the system – Putin’s ability to maintain the delicate balance of elite factions, the disenchantment of the security services, and the void of sincerity or meaning which can be exploited by a man like Prigozhin – and question what might be next for late Putinism.
Professor Mark Galeotti is a specialist on the Russian military and security services, an Honorary Professor at University College London and Executive Director of the UK-based consultancy Mayak Intelligence. He read history at Robinson College, Cambridge and took his doctorate in government at the LSE, and has since been Head of History at Keele University, a Senior Research Fellow with the Foreign Office, Professor of Global Affairs at New York University, and a visiting professor at Rutgers-Newark (Newark, NJ), Charles University (Prague), the European University Institute (Florence) and MGIMO (Moscow). Mark is the author of Putin’s Wars: From Chechnya to Ukraine (Bloomsbury, 2022), The Weaponisation of Everything (Yale, 2022), We Need To Talk About Putin (Ebury, 2019) and The Vory: Russia’s Super Mafia (Yale, 2018). He has studied Russia for many years, and was on the first list of British people banned by Moscow.
Anna Arutunyan is a Russian-American journalist, author and analyst. She covered the 2014 war for USA Today from Crimea and Donetsk, and has since analysed the conflict for the International Crisis Group. Her work has appeared in the European Council on Foreign Relations, Foreign Affairs, The Spectator, and Jane’s Intelligence Review. She is the author of several books about Russia, including The Putin Mystique: Inside Russia’s Power Cult (Interlink Books, 2014), and Hybrid Warriors: Proxies, Freelancers and Moscow’s Struggle for Ukraine (Hurst, 2022). Anna is a Global Fellow at the Kennan Institute and Associate Director at the consultancy Mayak Intelligence.
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