Astonishing news today from Russia. Prigozhin, leader of the Wagner mercenary group has all but announced a coup! Given that the Wagner mercenary group’s numbers were magnified to the extent they were, mainly by conditionally released prisoners’, purely with the purpose to use them in forward positions. Whilst essentially untrained, these troops were seen as tactical pawns, to be taken by the Ukrainians – therefore moving Ukrainian forces forward into a better kill zone for the more experienced Russian army soldiers… This begs the question, how likely is it that Prigozhin will be followed, by even his own mercenaries, let alone large sections of the Russian army more broadly…. Elements of whom he has today sworn revenge against.
One thing it absolutely does signify is a crumbling of the power of the Russian state. Senior and experienced western Russia watchers have said for quite some time now: “Be careful what you wish for, in seeking the overthrow of Putin. There is a very real likelihood, in this time of Russian ultra nationalism, that any replacement of him could be even worse…”
Prigozhin is unlikely to get very far, and who knows – he may even be assassinated within the week – this is what happened to Nemtsov, an opposition politician with a very public and national profile, who was casually murdered on one of the city’s main bridges in Moscow, in 2015. Prigozhin has been a very useful foil for Putin in injecting dynamism and radicalism into the Russian army, from outside their ranks. Yet biting the hand that feeds him is a step too far… And given that Prigozhin originally was Putin’s chef, this is not a bad analogy…
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