Russia is splintering. Even though Yevgeny Prigozhin just announced a surprising stand-down while en route to Moscow, it’s clear that his effort remains by far the greatest threat to Vladimir Putin since he took power in the summer of 1999. The story of the Wagner Group plot may not yet have reached its end, so it’s worth understanding how coups work: what causes them to succeed or, in this case, why they fizzle or fall short.

The prospect of a dictator meeting his demise conjures images of crowds taking to the streets and toppling statues, the despot fleeing his palace with henchmen carrying hastily packed suitcases full of cash. Such events do happen, but they’re the exception. Most of the time, dictators fall when their military splits into factions, and one faction turns against the regime. If all factions turn against the dictator, then it’s time for the henchmen, the suitcases of cash, and a hasty exit.  

Since the end of World War II, two-thirds of all dictators have been toppled in coups d’état—irregular seizures of power that are usually led by a group within the military. However, in recent years, coups have become less common. During the height of the Cold War, an average of 13 coup plots were executed per year globally. Since 2010, that number has hovered around two to three per year. Because they are rare events and because no two are alike, coups are difficult to predict. But some patterns can help us understand whether a plot will succeed or fail once it has begun.

For more than a decade, I’ve studied coups around the world, including those in Thailand, Madagascar, Zambia, and Tunisia. And in speaking to dozens of generals and soldiers who have hatched coup plots—and those who join them once they’re under way—I’ve learned that the successful ones share a few major factors.

The most successful coups are those in which the military is unified. In Thailand, for example, coups are usually executed by the military brass, who announce that they are toppling civilian politicians. With nobody with guns to oppose them, Thai coups almost always succeed. No splintered factions, no risk of failure. After all, what’s the president or prime minister going to do—shoot back at the army?

When the coup is carried out by a faction within the military sector—as has happened in Russia—the dynamics become more complicated. Such a coup plot is not like a battle, in which the bigger, superior force tends to win. Rather, the plot will likely succeed less on strength than on perception. The plotters are playing a PR game, in which they’re trying to create the impression that their coup is destined to triumph. Nobody wants to be on the losing side, because the punishments are brutal. If you stay loyal to the dictator and the dictator gets toppled, you might be jailed, even executed, by the usurpers. But if you join the plot and it fails, the same fate awaits, often with an unpleasant visit to the dictator’s torture chambers. A soldier or officer can make no higher-stakes bet. Picking the losing side never ends well.

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When coups succeed, they hit a tipping point that produces a “bandwagon effect.” Just as sports teams tend to see their fan base expand dramatically when they’re on the cusp of a championship, coup plotters see their ranks swell when they look like they’re on the cusp of ousting the dictator.

When dictators face coup attempts, then, they desperately try to control information, assert their authority, and remain as visible as possible. That’s why Putin addressed the nation this morning—and why there are reports of digital censorship aimed at blocking access to information about the Wagner Group or Prigozhin’s videos. It’s important to appear calm and in control, a strategy that Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, used effectively in 2016, when he broadcast a message to the nation via FaceTime during an attempted coup.

Successful coups also take the regime by surprise at a moment of weakness. Many plots are carried out when a dictator is abroad, sick, or vulnerable in some other way. In those instances, the dictator is slower to respond (some successful plots have even been carried out while a dictator is undergoing surgery abroad). In this instance, Prigozhin chose to strike at a moment when the Kremlin is mired in a bloody, seemingly pointless stalemate in Ukraine. He timed his plot well, because bandwagoning becomes more likely if people around the dictator already have doubts about him.

So what would it look like if a military gambit against Putin were to succeed? The answer, surprisingly, doesn’t likely involve a mass-casualty tank battle or a gunfight in the streets of Moscow. Instead, a successful coup requires one of two things: defections to the plotters, or inaction against them.

For coup ringleaders, the best-case scenario is a series of high-profile defections, in which senior leaders within the military announce that they are backing the plot. Their decampment reinforces the perception that the plot will succeed, which changes the behavior of even the lowest-ranking soldier who was previously on the fence.

But sometimes, sitting on the fence is sufficient to allow coup plots to topple governments. After all, Rostov saw no gun battles, just acceptance on the part of Russian soldiers who didn’t feel like sacrificing their lives to shoot soldiers who, until a few hours earlier, were on the same side. Prigozhin’s forces took Rostov the same way that Putin thought he would take Kiev—with little to no resistance. When a military fails to act decisively against a coup, then, that delay gives the plotters an opening to create an aura of inevitability around the putsch. If Prigozhin had kept it going for longer, his chances of success would have been higher.

However, Putin, while sometimes irrational, is no fool. He has engaged in extensive “coup proofing,” which means that he’s taken steps to ensure that when someone starts shooting at his forces, they shoot back, rather than turning their weapons on him. Putin has coup-proofed his dictatorship by creating a splintered security sector rife with internal competition, which means that no one faction dominates the rest. Three of Putin’s core security and intelligence services (the GRU, SVR, and FSB) also have elite special-operations branches full of loyalists.

Beyond that “praetorian guard,” Putin has also insulated himself by creating such an intense fun-house mirror of disinformation that nobody within Russia knows what to trust. The environment is, as Peter Pomerantsev puts it, one in which “nothing is true and everything is possible.” But the effects cut both ways. In Putin’s favor, few soldiers would have wanted to break with their superiors on the basis of mere whispers, rumors, and unverified reports about Wagner’s advance. At the same time, however, soldiers in Putin’s Russia will always wonder whether they’ve been told the truth when Putin asserts that he still has complete control.  

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Coup plots are fast-moving crises defined by uncertainty, in which nobody really knows what’s going on, and everyone is operating on imperfect information, forced to make impulsive, snapshot decisions within the fog of war. Coups are therefore among the most unpredictable events in politics. If anyone claims to know how Putin will fall, they’re lying. But even though this plot seems to have been called off, Prigozhin’s challenge to Putin will nonetheless be a decisive moment in Russia’s dictatorship and the war in Ukraine.

Everyone—loyalist or not—can see that Putin has been openly attacked, which conveys weakness. Putin’s forces in Ukraine will wonder whether they should get killed in a seemingly futile war, particularly when the biggest territorial gains of the war so far have now been in Russia, not Ukraine. And Putin, already a paranoid and irrational figure, will now make more decisions out of fear. So even if the coup fizzles, it will change Russia’s internal politics, Putin’s behavior, and the battlefield dynamics in Ukraine.

There are no “good guys” in a battle in which two Russian war criminals vie for control of a major nuclear power. However, if you’re watching events and trying to understand the strategic logic of coups and how Putin’s regime might end, look out for whether the loyalists stay loyal or start to peel off toward those challenging him. If important figures begin to abandon the regime en masse, Putin is toast.