Warlord Era? Putin’s blunder: Governors allowed to form private armies.
Russia’s Regional Governors Gain Authority to Form Private Military Companies
Russia’s regional governors now have the legal authority to establish their own “private military companies,” a move that comes shortly after President Vladimir Putin confronted the failed march on Moscow by the Wagner Group.
“Kind of shooting themselves in the legs, actually,” a senior European official mused in reference to Putin and his associates. “That technically allows [the governors] to create private armies.”
The legislation, adopted by Russia’s State Duma, claims to ensure public safety during times of mobilization, martial law, and wartime. However, this measure raises concerns about the potential for political and social turmoil as Putin loosens his grip on military power.
“Until recently, the tendency in Russia was towards ever greater centralization and the reinforcement of the ‘vertical of power’ - Putin’s key political project,” wrote Sergey Radchenko, a historian at Johns Hopkins University. “However, what we are seeing today is something altogether different. It’s almost a throwback to feudalism.”
The decision to allow governors to form their own paramilitary forces, so soon after the Wagner Group incident, suggests that Putin is taking extraordinary risks to sustain the war against Ukraine.
“If you think of Russia as a gangster state, it all starts to make sense,” Radchenko continued. “In a gangster setting, the use of force is not centralized but rather delegated down to lower levels of local crime bosses who owe general allegiance to the head of the criminal organization. I think that’s what Putin’s model of governance has become.”
The new military companies would be equipped by the Russian state and specifically empowered to combat Ukrainian drone attacks.
“Employees of the companies have the right to terminate the operation of unmanned aerial, underwater, and surface vessels and devices, unmanned transport vehicles, and other automated unmanned systems in order to repel attacks,” the legislation states.
Another measure accompanying this legislation raises the upper age limit for conscription, allowing more men to be compelled to join the war in Ukraine. The empowerment of governors likely reflects the Kremlin’s desire to generate new manpower while minimizing political backlash.
“This is basically pushing down the share of responsibility,” said Russian economist Konstantin Sonin. ”I think that it’s done by Putin people, but basically, their task is as follows: Do national mobilization, without doing national mobilization. They’re trying to be creative, [about] how to mobilize people without saying that you are mobilizing people.”
The empowerment of regional governors draws comparisons to China’s Warlord Era a century ago, but Kremlin officials aim to avoid a similar outcome by placing these paramilitaries under the auspices of internal security organs.
“The Russian military leadership is very alive to the risk of recreating a powerful Wagner analogue and is therefore trying to limit the scale and power each individual enterprise can obtain,” observed a team of analysts from the Institute for the Study of War.
Sonin cautioned against expecting Russia’s governors to have ambitions that could fuel internal conflict, stating that these private regional armies would likely participate in the fight for industrial and financial assets within their regions rather than fighting other regions.
However, the prospect of armed and experienced regional gangs raises concerns about lawlessness and potential future conflicts.
Despite the new legislation, some observers believe that Putin’s tenure is nearing its end.
“It just speeds up the trends which have already started,” said a senior European official. “He turned this state into a totally criminal hierarchy, so… the organization will fall down when the authoritarian leader is gone because the institutions are not functioning. It’s not an institution-based thing; it’s a violence-based thing.”
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