MARK ALMOND: Putin may have beheaded the snake with Yevgeny Prigozhin’s reported death, but it won’t break these Wagner thugs

Stalin had a favorite slogan to explain why he killed rivals to gain power. “No man, no problem,” said the Soviet dictator.

Today, Vladimir Putin, sitting at Stalin’s desk in the Kremlin, enjoys perhaps the mass murderer’s favorite aphorism.

Wednesday’s dramatic plane crash and the reported deaths of warmonger Yevgeny Prigozhin and his key aides – who led the sinister Wagner Group of mercenaries – certainly seem to have been a settlement straight out of the playbook of the unsuspected ‘Man of Steel’ .

But now several questions arise. Has Putin secured himself in power? Did the problem go away with the elimination of the man? And what does Prigozhin’s death mean for the Wagner group – which only a few weeks ago was about to launch a revolutionary attack on Moscow?

There is one major difference between Putin and Stalin. The Soviet leader purged his generals before the war, not in the middle of the war. And when Prigozhin launched his short-lived, ill-fated mutiny two months ago, he shattered Putin’s image as Russia’s undisputed boss.

Putin’s initial — and unprecedented — forgiveness now appears to be just another chess move

Now the dictator’s initial—and unprecedented—forgiveness of this defiance seems like just another chess move. Putin struck when the Wagner boss felt safe again and did the president’s dirty work for him again.

In Wednesday’s crash, Putin also appears to have taken out Wagner co-founder Dmitry Utkin and named it after Hitler’s favorite composer because, according to the research website Bellingcat, he had “an obsessive fascination with the history of the Third Reich.”

The problem for Putin is that tens of thousands of battle-hardened Wagner soldiers, who fought for — and in many cases remain utterly loyal to — Prigozhin and Utkin, are now scattered in theaters from Bakhmut in Ukraine to sub-Saharan Africa.

To dismiss them as mere mercenaries motivated only by money – that is, simply guns for hire – would be short-sighted.

True, Prigozhin recruited tens of thousands of prisoners to fight and die for him. But when people take up arms even for a bad cause – think of Hitler’s Waffen-SS – they develop bonds of camaraderie, an esprit de corps. If you cut off the snake’s head, as Putin clearly hoped, often all you can find is a new, hideous hydra hissing in its place.

In the past, Putin’s policy has been to eliminate specific rivals when they begin to pose a threat to him. As China’s murderous Chairman Mao remarked, “Kill one, scare ten thousand.” But killing the leaders of a loyal armed militia is another story.

Putin struck when the Wagner boss felt safe again and did the president’s dirty work for him again

While NATO forces have little to fear from another head-on clash with Wagner’s thugs, Putin should still fear them

Prigozhin imposed brutal discipline, but his men learned not only how to kill and avoid being killed, but also the lifesaving value of loyalty. Putin will not break those ties easily.

Since June, the Wagner group has lost its tanks and artillery and returned it to the regular Russian army. The men are mainly in organized units far away from Russia in Africa, where they are valuable in guarding gold mines and other minerals.

They certainly pose a danger to the people there, but not directly to the West. In the only direct firefight between Wagner mercenaries and the US military in Syria in February 2018, the Russians lost heavily.

But while NATO forces have little to fear from another head-on clash with Wagner’s thugs, Putin should still fear them. They will be difficult to control from Moscow, often thousands of miles from the front. And some violent Wagner men, fanatically loyal to their slain leaders and willing to serve a new Putin-hating patron, could quickly form a formidable assassination squad.

Some Wagner fighters have already made threatening Telegram videos warning, “We’re on the move, get ready for us.”

Divide and Conquer has worked for Putin – until now. Now Russia’s top militaries will wonder who will face the chop next – and that can only lead to new chaos.

Mark Almond is Director of the Crisis Research Institute, Oxford