What Does Wagner’s Short Uprising Mean for Putin and Russia?
Summary from the AllSides News Team
Commentators across the political spectrum appeared to agree that the Wagner mercenary group’s short-lived weekend march toward Moscow weakened Russian President Vladimir Putin.
In Case You Missed It: Over the weekend, a mercenary group fighting for Russia in Ukraine temporarily turned its sights to Moscow after its leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, said Russian forces had attacked his troops. Prigozhin’s forces occupied the southern city of Rostov-on-Don and purportedly came within about 125 miles of Moscow without much of a fight. While Prigozhin said his actions were merely a protest, Putin called the uprising a “betrayal” and “treason.”
Media Perspectives: While right-rated outlets were less likely to publish opinions and analyses on the incident, no one thought Wagner’s mutiny was good for Putin. Even Chinese media reportedly agreed, saying the uprising threatened Putin’s “political stability.” Some commentators said the Russian leader had no one to blame but himself. Others warned that the mutiny made Putin more dangerous. Meanwhile, some said Wagner’s mutiny had “failed,” implying the intent was, in fact, to threaten Putin’s regime.
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Prigozhin’s Mutiny Is the Beginning of Putin’s End
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. 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. Just as in Ukraine nine years ago, there was no resistance from...
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It will be a long time, if ever, before we know the backstory to the Prigozhin mutiny, starting, perhaps, with an accurate answer to the question of why Prigozhin was not reined in when his questioning of the way the war in Ukraine was being fought had shifted from being that of a loyal, if outspoken, courtier to something more threatening. And then there’s the small matter of the Kremlin’s failure to stop the Wagner column — something surely within the capability of Russia’s air force — long before it reached Rostov-on-Don,...
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Russian President Vladimir Putin is learning what so many tyrants have learned before him: When you unleash the dogs of war, they can come back to bite you. When the Russian strongman sent his troops marching to take Kyiv, he never imagined that 16 months later, mutinous Wagner mercenary group troops would march on Moscow.
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