Yevgeny Prigozhin’s armed rebellion collapsed hours after militias claimed control of the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don.
Posted on – Mon 26 Jun 23 12:15pm
If the attempted coup by a private Russian militia raised hopes of an end to Ukraine’s raging war, it didn’t take long for those hopes to be dashed. There seems to be no end to the suffering of the Ukrainian people as the cloud of war continues to hang over the Eastern European country invaded by Russia nearly 16 months ago. The armed rebellion by Yevgeny Prigorzhin, leader of Wagner’s mercenary and one-time confidant of Russian President Vladimir Putin, took control of the Russian city of Rostov, home to the country’s military headquarters, several days after the militia claimed control. It was declared a failure after hours. , and vowed to march on Moscow, this is a so-called just battle. Wagner’s unprecedented mutiny, consisting of more than 25,000 soldiers loyal to Prigozhin, shocked the Kremlin and left Putin looking vulnerable. But the uprising collapsed within 24 hours after Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko brokered a deal. As a result, rebel leaders halted their march on Moscow and ordered the mercenaries to retreat to field camps in Ukraine “to avoid shedding Russian blood”. Under the negotiated deal, Russia dropped the charges against him, provided security for Wagner’s forces and allowed him to travel to Belarus. The short-lived insurgency was a public relations disaster for the Kremlin, threatening both national stability and the war effort. It exposed the failure of the Russian army in the ongoing war.
The existence of military-backed private mercenary groups is a uniquely Russian phenomenon. Prigorzhin, a criminal who spent several years in prison, won Putin’s trust through his catering business, and then began to form a private militia that performed many dirty tasks that did not fall under the law. His mercenary organization quickly earned a reputation for ruthlessness and fought in battles in Syria and Libya, while building political clout for the Kremlin in countries including the Central African Republic, Libya, Mali and Sudan. He has become a public figure in recent months as he has begun to publicly criticize Russia’s military leadership for its failures in the Ukraine war, targeting Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of General Staff Valery Gerasimov, Bragging that his troops can do it. Works much better than Russian regulars. He recruited thousands of prisoners from Russian prisons and threw them into bloody battles in the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, which he attributed to the ruthlessness and disregard for human life of Russian commanders. The latest mutiny, though short-lived, has punctured the aura of invincibility that surrounds Putin. Putin’s deal with Prigozhin hours after threatening to crush him reinforces the fact that he no longer has exclusive control over the use of force on Russian soil.
