I'm trying to make sense of Yevgeniy Prigozhin's Potemkin Coup and mostly failing. He's been beefing with the Russia Ministry of Defense since Day One of Wagner's involvement in Ukraine. So, I get the feud with Shoiyu. However, there seemed and seems to be some non-trivial support for Wagner's move among rank and file Russians. So, while it's overwhelmingly likely that Russian armed forces would eventually defeat Wagner forces, it's not clear that this "armed protest" wouldn't have turned into something bigger.
However, Prigozhin's preemptive cancelation asks the question of what he hoped to accomplish? Did Putin labeling him a traitor surprise him? They hadn't met significant resistance yet and he caves? To Lukashenko? How did he get involved?
There are plenty of historical episodes of armed mutinies that were simply a mass of grievances and actually led to some policy changes or reform. It simply hasn't been common recently (as in the last century).
How do the Wagner troops feel about this? Prigozhin's in exile, they will likely be turned over to the Russian armed forces - whom they hate. How do we reconcile that Russian citizens seemed pretty OK with the Wagner demi-coup.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian counteroffensive has been mostly fits and starts and probing attacks. Is there anyway they can turn this chaos to their advantage?
What an absolute mess.
No comments:
Post a Comment