By Ali Karbalaei
TEHRAN- The Wagner Group leader's attempt to "take power" in Russia ends quickly.
A short-lived armed mutiny in Russia was a "well thought out and planned operation aiming to take over power in the country," Russia's deputy head of the Security Council Dmitry Medvedev has told reporters.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Russian private military company Wagner group, and his aides began the insurrection early on Saturday, and as soon as Saturday night. However, it was ended in a deal brokered by Belarus.
The Wagner leader's adventure came to a swift halt following an agreement with the Kremlin, and Prigozhin called off his mutiny plans in return for security guarantees.
As part of the agreement, it has been reported that Prigozhin has left Russia for Belarus while his Wagner fighters will be absorbed into the Russian military.
The Russian Federal Security Service has also dropped a criminal case over charges of a call for an armed rebellion.
Prigozhin ended the mutiny with the knowledge that his Wagner unit was heavily outmatched by the Russian military. His mission against Russia was similar to that of the U.S.-led NATO military alliance, which has so far sent about $100 billion worth of weapons to Ukraine to fight Russia.
Life has returned to normal in Russia to the disappointment of NATO and its allies.
State-owned Western media had always referred to Wagner PMC, whose members have been fighting in Ukraine as part of Russia's "special military operation" as "mercenaries".
During the quick mutiny attempt, they were no longer referred to as mercenaries anymore in the Western news narrative, as Prigozhin and some of his forces had switched from battling NATO-backed Ukrainian forces to fighting against the Russian Federation.
In the aftermath of the coup attempt, that title of "mercenaries" was returned to the Wagner PMC units.
The armed contractors, who take their military orders from the commander of chief of the Russian armed forces, managed to seize several army headquarters in the southern Russian border city of Rostov-on-Don, while others forces tried to make their way to Moscow.
Sergey Surovikin, the deputy commander of the Russian joint forces in Moscow's "special military operation", called on Wagner PMC to comply with President Putin’s order and to resolve all issues peacefully.
American news outlets have cited sources as saying U.S. intelligence agencies had known in advance that Prigozhin was planning a major move against the Russian government.
The U.S. is said to have deliberately avoided informing Russian authorities about the plan in an attempt to see how far Wagner PMC can go to inflict internal strife in Russia.
Throughout the day of unrest in Russia, not a single drop of blood was shed.
Many observers are of the belief that Prigozhin had been in touch with foreign intelligence agencies who have been trying to carry out the same mission as Prigozhin, but through other measures, in what Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has called all-out hybrid warfare against his country.
Western leaders have also been left frustrated as during the attempted coup, Russian military leaders, politicians, senior officials and the public came out in support of Putin and rallied around him in a strong sign of support for the Russian leader.
Putin played a key role in ending the armed mutiny by delivering a very defiant speech, threatening those who want to cause "internal turmoil" with a harsh response.
Senior Russian officials had warned the West against using the mutiny attempt to advance their "Russophobic goals”, saying this would prove futile.
Wagner PMC has been leading the fight for the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, in what has been the longest and deadliest battle between Russian and Ukrainian forces since the conflict erupted in February 2021.
Some analysts believe it showed the combat expertise that the Wagner armed forces lacked by stretching out the battle for too long and allowing Ukraine the time to carefully plan for its counter-offensive.
Experts have pointed out that, by the same token, the duration of the battle, has allowed Russia the time to prepare for the Ukrainian counter-offensive that was finally launched by Kyiv recently; and according to Western officials has so far failed on all fronts.
Prigozhin began the attempted mutiny by claiming that his forces had been hit with an airstrike, accusing the Russian military leadership of killing members of his unit in Ukraine with the air attack. He failed to present any evidence to back up his allegation. Medvedev described the accusation as "nonsense".
The former Russian President pointed out that given the high degree of the attempted mutiny's preparedness, the professional coordination of action and the quality management of troop movements, "it is possible to speak of a thought-out military plan and the participation in the mutiny of the individuals who earlier served in the elite units of the Russian Armed Forces or, quite possibly, of foreign specialists as well."
Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists that "an agreement was reached that PMC Wagner troops would return to their camps and places of deployment. Some of them, if they wish to do so, can later ink contracts with the Defense Ministry," Peskov said. "It also applies to fighters, who decided against taking part in this ‘armed mutiny.’"
The spokesman also said, "There were some fighters in the military formations [of Wagner PMC], who changed their minds at the very beginning [of the armed mutiny] and returned immediately."
"They have even requested the assistance of the traffic police as well as other help to return to their permanent places of deployment," Peskov added in remarks published by TASS.
Over the past six months, Prigozhin had been building a feud with Russia's Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu and Russia's chief of the general staff Valery Gerasimov.
Putin had called on the businessman behind Wagner to settle any of his differences in a peaceful manner. Prigozhin chose the opposite, and that has raised eyebrows about what his true intentions had been and who was acting behind him.
A convoy of his forces crossed the border from the battlefield in Ukraine to a Russian border city, at one point taking full control of it, before the Russian military swiftly regained authority.
His units have no aircrafts so there was no chance of success by his armed mutiny. The Russian military could have wiped out all his forces when they crossed the border, with Moscow enjoying powerful air superiority.
Since the conflict in Ukraine, officials in Kyiv have repeatedly complained about a lack of advanced warplanes to match Russia's Air Force.
When a country backed by the U.S.-led NATO, with upwards of $100 billion in sophisticated weapon shipments cannot counter Russian forces, it is quite impossible to imagine a single unit succeeding in a coup attempt.
As Wagner units return to their bases, this peculiar episode, as well as Prigozhin, appear to be heading to the dust bins of history.
TAGS
No comments:
Post a Comment