It’s likely that Putin originally imagined Wagner as a Russian version of Blackwater, the U.S. forces in 2018, the Kremlin response was muted, since officially they were not members of Russia’s armed forces. When an unknown number of Wagner contractors in Syria were killed by U.S. The Kremlin could deny any connection to Prigozhin, and Prigozhin, of course, denied hiring trolls and warriors. presidential election with his so-called troll farm to fighting undercover in Ukraine, Syria, and the Central African Republic. Prigozhin has long been the Kremlin’s man for dirty deeds, from interfering in the 2016 U.S. The Kremlin allowed Prigozhin to recruit in prisons, which filled Wagner’s fighting force with desperate convicts. At the very least, that Prigozhin’s army was able to travel hundreds of miles unhindered shows that the Kremlin lacks the wherewithal to put down a domestic rebellion, especially when its best troops are fighting in Ukraine.ĭespite the drama of the situation, a mutiny by Russia’s scariest people should not come as a surprise. Anger with Russia’s top brass has not been limited to Wagner, and Prigozhin’s rage may well extend to the ranks of the Russian military. There is another similarity to World War I that Putin did not mention: corruption and incompetence in the Russian military, as well as the inhumane treatment of its own soldiers. Putin even invoked the violent collapse of the Russian Empire in World War I, though he did not mention Tsar Nicholas II, the disgraced ruler murdered by Russian revolutionaries. In a televised address, the Russian president called Wagner’s mutiny a “stab in the back” and warned of civil war. But Prigozhin’s open show of arms on Russian soil sent a challenge to the Kremlin that Putin could no longer ignore. He has a history of publicly insulting Russia’s defense minister, Sergei Shoigu, and the chief of the general staff, Valery Gerasimov, and getting away with it. Prigozhin said his beef was with the military leadership, which he accused of trying to destroy the Wagner Group. The blowback of his attack on Ukraine was symbolized by a Wagner tank, marked with the letter “Z,” which stands for the Kremlin’s war effort, pointing not at Ukrainians but other Russians. In the space of 24 hours, the full madness of Vladimir Putin’s dictatorship was on display. From there, the Wagner forces began a march on Moscow until Prigozhin abruptly ordered his men to turn around and return to their bases. This weekend’s lightning takeover of Rostov by the Wagner mercenary group was the first step in an armed mutiny led by Yevgeny Prigozhin, the ex-con who rose to become Russia’s most infamous battlefield commander. Just as in Ukraine nine years ago, there was no resistance from local law enforcement officers, who chose life over a fight with determined gunmen. Like the Russian troops and soldiers-of-fortune who began the Kremlin’s covert invasion of Ukraine, the fighters in Rostov displayed no insignia as they seized key buildings, including the headquarters of Russia’s Southern Military District. When I saw the first images of armed men in ragtag uniforms taking over the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don on Saturday morning, I was immediately reminded of the “ little green men” who began showing up in cities in Crimea and eastern Ukraine in 2014.
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