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news from ukraine: the leader of wagner group has accused the russian military of bombing his forces. seems to be preparing some kind of
coupspecial military operation. russian generals are asking mercenaries not to join in. prigozhin has vocally criticized russian military leaders recently, but this is a massive escalation. could we see a civil war break out in the middle of this war?update: prigozhin claims that he has entered rostov without resistance. lots of unverified videos on twitter of wagner/russian convoy movements, and some combat footage; wagner claims to have shot down a russian helicopter.
video of supposedly wagner soldiers and tanks surrounding the MoD building in rostov.
Wagner has no chance of doing anything. Russian MoD can easily crush them. Putin used Wagner to avoid mass mobilisation early on but this strategy has now backfired. He also likes playing all sides against each other to keep them on their toes. This includes his own generals.
Prigozhin simply didn't understand he was just a chess piece in a greater game, he thought he was an actual leader. He will learn very shortly who is the real boss. Ultimately he isn't a threat, but this entire situation was allowed to develop because of Putin's inability to call a war what it needs to be called: a war, rather than his SMO bullshit. He should never have allowed these militias to proliferate and should have called up a much bigger mobilisation drive to begin with. But that's water under the bridge. Wagner as a group is now a spent force in Russia. They could survive as mercs in MENA/Africa, going back to their original, smaller roots.
Why do you assume that MoD is in any position to fight? That soldiers will shoot at all?
I think the mutiny will fail, but mostly for boring logistical reasons and because their actual targets are guarded by the FSO, as again Galeev notes (that said, the role of FSO is obvious to anyone who's looked even once at the makeup of Russian internal forces). It's far from obvious that most of the regular army will even bother engaging them. Prig's reputation is far higher than anyone's in there, esprit de corps in the Russian army is non-existent (by design), and frankly they would rather pass the buck to the next regiment. The whole army is dysfunctional, no matter what Twitter guys say about offensive, counteroffensive or whatever.
We'll see if he's negotiated this with Kadyrov soon.
Even if his allegedly 25k-strong PMC can reach Moscow in full strength without leaving 10k as a rear guard, that's not enough to take a city the size of Moscow (or cross the Oka) even if everyone except the FSO decides to sit the fight out.
If Prigožin's not just fatally off his meds, then I can think of a couple of explanations for why he would try something like that
he thinks he has allies he can rely on to flip the balance, perhaps:
Dyumin, who has ties in both the military and the FSO and is the governor of Tula on the other side of the Oka
someone in Tamanskaja or Kantemirovskaja divisions
Kuznecov or even Zolotov
he has no plans to go far, just to carve out his own demesne in the south the size of Denikin's
he's just desperate because he knew his days were numbered so he went all in
It doesn't really need to take a city the size of Moscow to work, however. It just needs to take the government- but especially MOD- infrastructure. That wouldn't be enough in a society with high social cohesion- but the Russian state is, deliberately, much more fragile for a lack of popular investment. In lack of that civic society resilience where the state infrastructure is not the institution, Moscow may be a city of 12 million requiring divisions to siege, but the parts that 'matter' are only a fraction of the size, especially if few people actually try to stop you.
And here your question of 'thinks he has allies' could be reframed as 'who else might be behind Wagner's effort.' We discuss this like Prigozin is acting on his own- but Wagner has always been an extension of certain parts of the security state. If Prigozin is not the actor, but the agent, then he may not be so opposed- or have allies in waiting- when he arrives.
I've no personal investment in this point- I think personal interest is enough and let Occam's Razor hold the rest- but given how the Russian state seems to have been surprised by this, 'why didn't the people watching Wagner notice this' could easily be answered by- or suspected to be- 'because the people watching them were in on it.'
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What if FSO is dysfunctional and not good at fighting either ?
It's pretty odd that the whole of Prigozhin's attempt hasn't been yet been curtailed by airstrikes.
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