The Times and The Sunday Times/Youtube
By Scott Taylor
The war in Ukraine took a bizarre and alarming twist with the armed showdown between the Wagner Group mercenaries and Vladimir Putin’s regime. When the news first broke on Saturday June 24 that Wagner troops were driving on Moscow, western media outlets scrambled to make sense of the unfolding drama.
Thrust into the international spotlight was Wagner’s founder, the outspoken Yevgeny Prigozhin, who proclaimed his soldiers were targeting the Russian military’s senior leadership: namely Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and top General Valery Gerasimov.
For those who closely follow global security issues, Prigozhin and his Wagner group are well known entities. However for casual observers the apparent open revolt by a private army inside Russia came as a bit of a shock.
Prigozhin began his career as a petty criminal and spent some time in jail. As a result he avoided conscripted service in Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation.
Prigozhin became a hot dog vendor before elevating himself into a proprietorship of several fine dining establishments in Saint Petersburg.
In this post-Soviet era Prigozhin hitched his wagon to a former KGB Chief turned politician named Vladimir Putin.
Soon nicknamed ‘Putin’s Chef’ Prigozhin expanded his enterprise with a catering contract to feed Russia’s massive military.
In 2014, Russia wanted to create a private military force that they could employ to do their bidding without formal involvement by the state.
Although he had no military experience, Prigozhin was a ruthless businessman and a loyal ally of Putin.
Thus, the Russian state funded and equipped what was called the Wagner Group.
It was Prigozhin’s employees who were described as “the little green men” when they entered and occupied the Crimea in 2014.
By employing Wagner mercenaries, Russia could dubiously claim that their military was not actively engaged in the pro-Russian separatist movement in the Donbas region of Ukraine.
We now know from public admissions by Putin, that Wagner was paid billions of dollars to wage Russia’s proxy wars around the globe.
Earlier this year a video surfaced showing Prigozhin recruiting volunteers at a Russian prison with the promise of a pardon for those who complete a six month tour of duty on the frontlines of Ukraine.
There is no doubt that many of those convicts failed to earn that pardon as the Wagner group suffered horrific casualties in the meat grinder battle for the city of Bakhmut.
In that months-long struggle, Prigozhin made a name for himself by publicly calling out the senior military leadership of Russia for failing to properly support his fighters.
In one graphic video rant a visibly enraged Prigozhin points at the dead bodies of scores of Wagner soldiers and shouts “Shoigu, Gerasimou, where the f*ck is our ammo.”
Many analysts were shocked at the amount of vocal independence that Prigozhin was allowed in totalitarian Russia. However, Prigozhin avoided singling out Putin for criticism, and kept his sights set on Russia’s inept military commanders.
That public spat had resulted in the decision by the generals to formally disband Wagner Group in Ukraine.
As of July 1 those mercenaries were to make a choice of either enlisting in the regular Russian Army, or simply heading home.
One has to imagine that Prigozhin saw this as a massive blow to his empire, and would go a long way to explain why he staged an armed protest with his drive on Moscow.
In the end, we are to believe that cooler heads prevailed.
Belarus President Victor Lukashenko is said to have negotiated a deal with Prigozhin whereby the mutiny leader and his rebel army will not face prosecution for their actions.
Prigozhin will be exiled to Belarus and Wagner soldiers can choose to follow him there, or take the original deal to enlist in the Russian military.
There is still the question of what will happen to Wagners’ other ongoing operations in Syria, Libya, Central African Republic, Mali and Sudan. It is believed that at its zenith, Wagner had some 50,000 mercenaries on the payroll worldwide.
Whatever happens it will not be a quick fix.
However, in the wake of Prigozhin’s ill-fated, cannon ball run on Moscow, western analysts are gleefully predicting this could be the beginning of the end for strongman Putin at Russia’s helm.
However, it does not take much imagination to ponder what would have happened if Prigozhin had succeeded in ousting Putin.
Putin may be a madman, but Prigozhin is a ruthless lunatic. He was never advocating for a peaceful resolution to the war in Ukraine. He simply wanted it waged with less regard for human suffering. He didn’t want an olive branch. He wanted more ammo.
We may think we want Putin ousted, but he remains the devil we know.
Prigozhin came within a hairs breath of obtaining Russia’s nuclear codes. Imagine that scenario.
