Hal Brands, Columnist

Russia’s Uprising Is a Serious Threat to China as Well

Xi’s “intimate friend” Putin is proving vulnerable, which endangers the global axis of authoritarianism.

June 24, 2023 at 5:16 PM UTC

Hal Brands is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist and the Henry Kissinger Distinguished Professor at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies.

Happier times.
Photographer: Pavel Byrkin/AFP/Getty Images

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Note: This story was published June 24, 2023. Hours later, Russian President Vladimir Putin managed to avert an attack on Moscow with an 11th-hour deal with Yevgeny Prigozhin.

When political change comes to totalitarian societies, it tends to be violent and unpredictable. Few analysts — even well-informed US officials I spoke to in recent days — were forecasting that Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of Russia’s Wagner Group of mercenaries, would soon be leading his forces toward Moscow.