Saturday, June 24, 2023

24: Wagner



The Wagner Mutiny Foreshadows a Russian Defeat Prigozhin’s escapade shows Putin’s war in Ukraine isn’t going well for him.

Mercenary chief’s forces advance toward Moscow as Putin vows harsh punishment for rebellion leaders Prigozhin’s actions represented the most significant challenge to Putin’s leadership in his more than two decades in power........ Prigozhin’s private army appeared to control the military headquarters in Rostov-on-Don, a city 660 miles (over 1,000 kilometers) south of Moscow that runs Russian operations in Ukraine, Britain’s Ministry of Defense said. Wagner troops and equipment also were in Lipetsk province, about 360 kilometers (225 miles) south of Moscow, where authorities “are taking all necessary measures to ensure the safety of the population,” said regional Gov. Igor Artamonov, via Telegram. He did not elaborate.......... Prigozhin said his fighters would not surrender, as “we do not want the country to live on in corruption, deceit and bureaucracy.” ............. Prigozhin said his fighters would not surrender, as “we do not want the country to live on in corruption, deceit and bureaucracy.” ........ The rebellion comes as Russia is “fighting the toughest battle for its future,” Putin said, with the West piling sanctions on Moscow and arming Ukraine. “The entire military, economic and information machine of the West is waged against us,” Putin said...... In announcing the rebellion, Prigozhin said he wanted to punish Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu after he accused Russian government forces of attacking Wagner field camps in Ukraine with rockets, helicopter gunships and artillery. He claimed that “a huge number of our comrades got killed.” ................ “For a long time, Russia used propaganda to mask its weakness and the stupidity of its government. And now there is so much chaos that no lie can hide it,” he said........ Prigozhin, whose feud with the Defense Ministry dates back years, had refused to comply with a requirement that his forces sign contracts with the ministry before July 1. He said Friday he was ready for a compromise but “they have treacherously cheated us.” In Washington, the Institute for the Study of War said “the violent overthrow of Putin loyalists like Shoigu and Gerasimov would cause irreparable damage to the stability of Putin’s perceived hold on power.” ...... The Kremlin said Putin spoke by phone with the leaders of Turkey, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan about the events.



Belarus: Wagner Group Leader Agrees to Stop Mercenaries' Advance Toward Moscow, Deescalate . Wagner chief Prigozhin orders his fighters to turn back from Moscow to avoid bloodshed Leader of the Wagner Group Yevgeny Prigozhin says he has ordered his fighters, who had been advancing on Moscow, to turn around and return to their bases in order to avoid bloodshed.

Putin's plane reportedly departs from Moscow to Valdai, disappears from radars While commenting on Putin’s whereabouts to the state-controlled TASS news agency, his press secretary Dmitry Peskov said his boss “is working in the Kremlin.” ....... Russian officials are fleeing from Moscow on business jets ........... On June 23, the chief of PMC Wagner Group Yevgeny Prigozhin declared war on the Russian Defense Ministry after an alleged attack by the Russian army on his mercenaries’ military camp. As of June 24, according to media reports, Wagner mercenaries took control of Russian military facilities in Rostov and Voronezh. Prigozhin demands access to Russia’s top military leadership, threatening to "advance towards Moscow."

Russia is on the verge of total disintegration, as local elites scramble for an escape . This is the beginning of the end for Vladimir Putin. That may seem an odd thing to say when he is in command of nearly five million armed men in various police, military and paramilitary units. A mutiny by 25,000 mercenaries a thousand miles away might appear, at first glance, to be a minor irritant. ........... But that is not how autocracies work. Putin’s power rests on projection, on propaganda, on the image of invincibility. Now, all of a sudden, the curtain is being snatched back, revealing the Wizard of Oz as a small, mediocre, frightened man. .......... the effect of sanctions has been to strengthen Putin’s control over the economy. ......... The siloviki, the strongmen around Putin, sense his vulnerability, and are making alliances in preparation for the transition. The generals and admirals who hold the other half of the nuclear codes are manoeuvring. Perhaps

nine of Russia’s regions and republics could be ready to call independence referendums, having had enough of a Muscovite clique which seizes their natural resources, conscripts their young men, and offers them nothing in return

............. Prigozhin, a minor Leningrad gangster who rose with Putin ......... Their soldiers are often the refuse of Russian jails, but their officers tend to be former regulars, in many cases men who have been cashiered for insubordination, pilfering or violence. Hence their constant need to disparage the army, to portray themselves as the real professionals........... Wagner, which could not complete the capture of Bakhmut in six months, was able to take the Russian city of Rostov in six hours. ........ “A blow like this was dealt to Russia in 1917,” he said. “Intrigues, squabbles and politicking behind the backs of the army and the nation turned into the greatest turmoil, the destruction of the army and the collapse of the state, and the loss of vast territories, ultimately leading to the tragedy of the civil war.”............ Army morale collapsed very suddenly, and soldiers turned angrily on the Tsarist regime that had sent them into a hellish war. Chaos ensued and, for a time, the vast Russian empire fragmented into a series of squabbling successor states: Siberia, Eastern Okraina, Karakorum, the Kuban Rada, the Provisional Government of the Urals and others. Eventually, the Bolsheviks managed to reabsorb most of these territories, though some, including Finland, Poland and the Baltic States, broke away. ................ There are independence movements in Buryatia, Sakha, Dagestan, Chechnya, Kamchatka Krai, Komi, Novosibirsk, Archangel and Tatarstan. In all these places, local elites are preparing for a clean excision, a chance to cut their links with a defeated and dishonoured Moscow regime and join the comity of nations as resource-rich republics. ........... .Putin, whose paranoia extends to breathing specially purified air, would not have entrusted his kitchens to anyone unreliable........... the Ukrainians, in one of the most brilliant tactical moves in the history of warfare, have grasped that mercenaries will fight for the highest bidder........... and his last broadcast before the rising was a denunciation of Russia’s pretext for the invasion. It is at least possible that he has seen that Putin cannot win, and has reached an accommodation elsewhere.......... A third possibility is that he has allies in the Russian high command, and that this is part of a co-ordinated revolution. ........ Whatever the explanation, the end of the Putin regime is now in sight. Madame de Staël once quipped that Russia’s system of government was “autocracy tempered by strangulation”, and even Putin seems to sense that his days may be numbered. His justification for the war has been shown to be nonsense, and the defection of the units that were doing the hardest fighting puts victory definitively beyond his reach. ............ A tyrant can get away with many things. He can murder opponents, impoverish his people, isolate his country. But he cannot get away with losing a war. Let’s call it the Galtieri Principle: a strongman who turns out to be weak has failed in his own terms.

Wagner boss Prigozhin stops revolt to 'avoid bloodshed' in Russia Some 5,000 Wagner fighters seen approaching the Russian capital • Russia powerless to stop Wagner's revolt, advances to Moscow ........ Mutinous Russian mercenary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin said on Saturday he had ordered his fighters advancing on Moscow in convoy to turn around and return to their bases to avoid bloodshed. ....... The office of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said he had spoken to Prigozhin with Putin's approval, and that the head of the Wagner militia had agreed to de-escalate the situation. ............ "They wanted to disband the Wagner military company. We embarked on a march of justice on June 23. In 24 hours we got to within 200 km of Moscow. In this time we did not spill a single drop of our fighters' blood. "Now the moment has come when blood could be spilled. Understanding responsibility [for the chance] that Russian blood will be spilled on one side, we are turning our columns around and going back to field camps as planned."............. Earlier, Lukashenko's office said he had spoken to Prigozhin with Putin's approval, and that the mutinous head of the Wagner militia had agreed to stop the movements of his fighters, some of whom were advancing on Moscow in a convoy, and de-escalate. .

. ‘Breathtaking’: Lawmakers react to escalating security situation in Russia Congressional voices across the board stressed the historic scale and scope of Yevgeny Prigozhin’s declaration of war on Russian military leadership. ....... “This will almost certainly benefit the Ukrainian counteroffensive in the near term and [Ukraine] should move fast to capitalize,” Crow wrote on Saturday. .

. Russian helicopters battle rebel mercenaries rolling towards Moscow Russian military helicopters opened fire on Saturday afternoon (24 June) a convoy of rebel mercenaries already more than half way towards Moscow in a lightning advance after seizing a southern city overnight. President Vladimir Putin vowed to crush an armed mutiny he compared to Russia’s Civil War a century ago......... One tank was wedged between stucco buildings with posters advertising the circus. Another had “Siberia” daubed in red paint across the front, a clear statement of intent to sweep across the breadth of Russia. ........ “Excessive ambitions and vested interests have led to treason,” Putin said in a televised address, comparing the insurrection at a time of war abroad to Russia’s revolution and civil war unleashed during World War One. ....... A defiant Prigozhin swiftly replied that he and his men had no intention of turning themselves in. “The president makes a deep mistake when he talks about treason. We are patriots of our motherland, we fought and are fighting for it,” Prigozhin said in an audio message. “We don’t want the country to continue to live in corruption and deceit.” ........ In a series of hectic messages overnight, Prigozhin demanded Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and the chief of the general staff Valery Gerasimov come to see him in Rostov. ....... The insurrection also risks leaving Russia’s invasion force in Ukraine in disarray, just as Kyiv is launching its strongest counteroffensive since the war began in February last year. .......... This month, he defied orders to sign a contract placing his troops under Defence Ministry command. ........... “There are 25,000 of us and we are going to figure out why chaos is happening in the country,” he said, promising to destroy any checkpoints or air forces that got in Wagner’s way. He later said his men had been involved in clashes with regular soldiers and had shot down a helicopter.



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