REBEL WITH A PAUSE

Yevgeny Prigozhin’s revolt turned out to be a dud; but his questions about Russia falling short in Ukraine and the problems facing the Russian army continue to trouble Putin

- VLADIMIR ROZHDESTVENSKI

An attempt by the owner of the private military company Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, to march along with his soldiers to Moscow turned out to be unsuccessful, but it greatly undermined the prestige of Russian authorities. The Kremlin already knows how to deal with the so-called “liberal opposition”—mostly intellectuals and young students. But what about the rebellion of 25,000 well-armed criminals and mercenaries with combat experience? It seems that Moscow was not ready for this.

The first signals of the rebellion, in fact, appeared by the end of 2022, when Prigozhin began to speak critically about the senior command of the Russian armed forces, including Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu. He said the defence ministry was not providing ammunition to Wagner units in Ukraine. Prigozhin’s critical speeches culminated in a statement on June 23 in which he accused the Russian oligarchs and leaders of the armed forces of corruption, lack of professionalism and unwillingness to stop hostilities in Ukraine.

Prigozhin said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky “was ready for negotiations” when Putin launched the military operations last year. He also blamed the Russian army for allegedly launching a missile strike on the Wagner units, which led to the death of about 30 fighters. As his troops started moving towards Moscow, he called it a “march of justice” to find out “why the country was in disorder”.