Russian rebellion begins to fizzle
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Wagner forces continued to withdraw from positions in Rostov and on the road to Moscow to their bases on June 25, and the Kremlin’s intended structure for leveraging Wagner fighters remains unclear. Geolocated footage published on June 25 shows armed Wagner forces driving south away from Moscow near Voronezh City.[7] Footage published on June 25 purportedly shows Wagner forces returning to training camps in southern Russia.[8] The fact that Wagner is returning to their training camps with military equipment indicates that the Kremlin intends to maintain at least certain elements of Wagner’s manpower rather than seek to immediately demobilize them, although the future of Wagner’s command and organizational structure are unclear. Russian State Duma Defense Committee Head Andrei Kartapolov announced on June 25 that the State Duma is working on a law that would regulate private military companies (PMCs) but emphasized that it is not necessary to ban the Wagner Group as it is “the most combat-ready unit in Russia.”[9] Kartapolov further noted that the future of the Wagner Group is undetermined and emphasized that the personnel of the Wagner Group in Rostov-on-Don were “following orders of their command” and “did nothing reprehensible.”[10] Kartapolov’s efforts to absolve Wagner personnel of responsibility for taking part in an armed rebellion and separate them from Prigozhin may indicate the Russian government’s desire to continue to use Wagner personnel in some capacity, and as ISW assessed on June 24, the Russian leadership could redeploy Wagner to Ukraine or instead commit them to international missions. Russian state-affiliated news outlets reported on June 24 that the Russian Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media (Rozkomnadzor) blocked Prigozhin’s official press service on Russian social media site VKontakte, indicating the Kremlin’s efforts to restrict Prigozhin’s organizational actions.[11]
Further details emerged on the composition of the Wagner units approaching Moscow on June 24, indicating Prigozhin would likely have struggled in an active conflict in Moscow without additional support. Russian sources claimed on June 25 that the first Wagner column that began moving towards Moscow on June 24 consisted of 350 pieces of equipment, including nine tanks, four Tigr infantry fighting vehicles, a Grad MLRS system, and a howitzer.[12] Russian sources claimed that the three other Wagner columns that moved toward Moscow had 375, 100, and 212 pieces of equipment respectively, the majority of which were non-armored trucks, cars, and buses.[13] Russian milbloggers claimed on June 24 that the columns moving towards Moscow were comprised of 4,000 personnel with 40 to 50 pieces of equipment, including MRAPs, T-90M main battle tanks, BMP infantry fighting vehicles, Pantsir air defense systems, and Grad MLRS systems.[14] CNN reported on June 24 that US and Western intelligence officials observed Wagner amassing equipment and ammunition for the rebellion for several weeks, indicating that the columns likely comprised Wagner‘s greatest available strength.[15] ISW cannot confirm the exact composition of the Wagner columns at this time, although current reporting suggests that Prigozhin’s force would have struggled to fully occupy Moscow or conduct prolonged engagements with elements of the Russian Armed Forces, if they deployed. ISW previously assessed that Prigozhin likely sought and failed to win military support for his rebellion, and Wagner’s move on Moscow was likely predicated on the assumption that military support would strengthen the rebellion’s forces and capabilities.[16] Prigozhin may have become more amenable to the alleged negotiations with Lukashenko as these insufficient forces drew nearer to Moscow and that time was running out to garner the necessary military support for a potential armed conflict with the MoD.
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It appears that both sides in Russia have decided to avoid fighting at this point. It is not clear whether they have settled their differences or just lacked the will and the resources for a bloody conflict. I suspect the war in Ukraine has sapped the strength of both Wagner and the Russian army. It has exposed the weakness of Putin and his military. The Wagner group also lacked the resources to deal with the Russian military in an all-out conflict.
See, also:
After the march on Moscow, things cannot go back to normal in Russia
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And:
Vladimir Putin is reaping the fruits of his own misjudgments
Vladimir Putin has survived the most serious threat to his authority in two decades as Russia’s paramount leader. The Kremlin is bogged down in a conflict it cannot win, which has taken a grave toll on its economic future, turned it into a pariah for western countries, and brought armed insurgents to within a couple of hours’ drive of Moscow. The war against Ukraine was an exercise in miscalculation and hubris from the start.
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And:
‘The People Are Silent’: The Main Reason the Wagner Mutiny Bodes Ill for Putin
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What Prigozhin called the March for Justice is likely to be remembered not so much for the actual military operation as for what it revealed about Russia. Like a powerful searchlight, the 48-hour rebellion illuminated the murky innards of the Putin regime including the military's divided allegiances, the seeming hollowness of the people's support for the regime and, by extension, the regime’s shaky legitimacy. The images — of Putin, a famous night owl, addressing the nation in a dark suit and tie early on a Saturday morning; of mangled Russian helicopters felled by Wagner forces; and of residents of Rostov-on-Don jeering local police after the mutiny was ended — do not bode well for the Kremlin.
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And:
Russians are lining up at train stations as Wagner forces march toward Moscow
The pictures in this story are hard to ignore. They show Russians of all ages getting out of Moscow.
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As Yevgeny Prigozhin astonished the world by calling off his march on Moscow, Vladimir Putin, it seems, has narrowly avoided his 1917 moment. Russia has had a varied experience of coups and mutinies, from palace revolutions in the 18th century, an abortive mutiny in 1825 by liberal army officers who had tasted freedom in the West fighting Napoleon and, most importantly, in 1917, when the army high command told Nicholas II that his time was up.
Putin’s hope will be that Prigozhin’s bizarre about-turn means that this becomes perhaps the shortest-lived major mutiny in Russia’s long history.
It would be a grave mistake to believe that Putin is out of the woods. He stands gravely weakened.
In the simplest terms, mutineers tend to end up dead, although Prigozhin believes that he will survive to win another day. One thing that Russian armies under various regimes seem to have in common is the brutality with which their men are treated, the brutality with which they behave in response, and their lack of loyalty to their superiors.
These events merely remind us that nothing ever changes in Russia.
Stalin – who still provides a kind of template for Russian government – shot most of the military high command during the late 1930s, but when Hitler invaded in 1941 he realised he needed the surviving generals, and restored their privileges, including ranks and badges from the tsarist army.
Since then, every Russian regime has linked its prestige with the Great Patriotic War, and treated the army with a show of respect. But, at the same time, a large internal paramilitary force has been there to balance the power of the regular army.
And for the generals, the memory doubtless persists of thousands of their predecessors who ended with a bullet in the back of the head.
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And:
Russian military sees almost 5,000 casualties in one week of Ukrainian offensive
And:
Ukrainian army confirms liberation of territories in Donetsk Oblast occupied since 2014
And:
Putin’s ‘invincible’ hypersonic missiles could soon be intercepted
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