Wagner mutiny reveals fragility of Putin regime, blunder of Ukraine invasion

KYIV -- The Wagner Group's aborted mutiny at the weekend shows that Moscow's war in Ukraine is splintering Russian power with lasting and potentially irreparable consequences.

It also is a clear indicator that Russian President Vladimir Putin's decision to invade his neighbour was a "strategic mistake", NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said Monday (June 26) during a visit to Lithuania.

Tensions have been simmering in recent months between Putin and Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, whose mercenary force once carried out the Kremlin's dirty work in conflicts around the world, giving Moscow plausible deniability.

But since last September, when Prigozhin finally admitted his involvement in Wagner, he has been increasingly vocal and critical of Putin as well as of Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and Valery Gerasimov, the Russian military's top general.

The situation boiled over Saturday when Prigozhin's men started marching towards Moscow and clashed with regular Russian troops in Voronezh, bordering Ukraine.

When the Wagner mercenaries halted, they were 200km from Moscow, meaning they had advanced almost 900km from Rostov-on-Don in a day, showing the weakness of Russian defences.

Counts vary, but some sources say the mercenaries shot down six Russian helicopters and a warplane.

Meanwhile, in a spectacle that surely infuriated the Kremlin, a number of Russian military units failed to challenge the Wagner advance north.

Prigozhin was last seen late Saturday in a sports utility vehicle leaving Rostov-on-Don, where his fighters had seized the Southern Military District headquarters, the nerve centre of the invasion of Ukraine.

He was cheered by local residents while he shook hands with them through the car window. Trucks carrying armoured vehicles with his men on them followed his car.

His withdrawal came after Moscow announced that a deal had been struck for Prigozhin to go into exile in Belarus and for his men to receive an amnesty.

In exchange, they halted their march on Moscow.

On Monday, however, Russian news agencies reported that Prigozhin himself was still under investigation for trying to organise an armed rebellion.

"The criminal case against Prigozhin has not been dropped," the three main Russian news agencies quoted a source in the prosecutor's office as saying.

The Wagner Group gave its own sly indication that it was not finished with Putin.

On Sunday, its Telegram channel bore an illustration of Prigozhin shushing his viewers with the message "Plans love silence."

'Cracks in Russian facade'

"The events of the past weekend in Russia demonstrated the instability of the Kremlin regime," Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda said Monday at the news conference in Vilnius alongside Stoltenberg.

"Similar or even bigger challenges can be expected in the future," he told reporters.

Also on Monday, European Union (EU) foreign policy chief Josep Borrell opened a meeting of European foreign ministers in Luxembourg by declaring that the crisis was undermining the Kremlin's power.

"What has happened during this weekend shows that the war against Ukraine is cracking Russian power and affecting its political system," he said.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sunday called the situation "extraordinary".

"Think about it this way, 16 months ago, Russian forces were on the doorstep of Kyiv in Ukraine, believing they would take the capital in a matter of days and erase the country from ... the map as an independent country," he said on NBC's Meet the Press.

"Now what we've seen is Russia having to defend Moscow, its capital, against mercenaries of its own making."

The situation also raises "profound questions about the very premises for this Russian aggression against Ukraine that Prigozhin surfaced very publicly, as well as a direct challenge to Putin's authority", Blinken said.

"We've seen more cracks emerge in the Russian facade," he added.

Demoralising Russian troops

Wagner's revolt has exposed Putin's rule as more fragile than previously thought, analysts say.

"A coup is occurring. We can call it that -- a real coup," said Alexander Kovalenko, of Odesa, Ukraine, a military-political correspondent for InfoResist.

"Prigozhin is not the only character involved," he said. "So are the influence groups within various security agencies, starting with the Ministry of Defence and ending with the FSB [Russia's Federal Security Service], which allowed Prigozhin to occupy Rostov-on-Don completely unchallenged and in accordance with all [his] plans ... to charge through Voronezh province completely unchallenged."

Prigozhin has stated that "Putin had been duped for eight years, that [Russians] are bombing Donbas, and that Shoigu and Gerasimov had conned Putin -- that they had lied to him that the Ukrainians and NATO wanted to attack Russia", Kovalenko said.

"If such mutinies are repeated, Moscow will start to burn down," he added. The cumulative effect "will demotivate and demoralise Russian troops".

Wagner's mutiny was "a very serious shock for the Russians themselves", said Kyiv-based political analyst Maxim Rozumny.

It also "swaps out Russian foreign policy problems for Russian domestic ones", he said.

"They already can't handle Ukraine or NATO. Now their own house is on fire," Rozumny said. "I doubt many Russians are happy with what's going on. They felt fear and instability; they understand that ordinary life can be destroyed."

Ludmila Shmeleva, 70, told AFP she was "shaken" by the weekend's events.

"I was not expecting this," she said while walking at Moscow's Red Square.

"The crisis of institutions and trust was not obvious to many in Russia and the West yesterday. Today, it is clear," independent political analyst Konstantin Kalachev told AFP.

"Putin underestimated Prigozhin, just as he underestimated [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelenskyy before that," he said. "He could have stopped this with a phone call to Prigozhin, but he did not."

Kremlin 'very weak'

"The Kremlin's position now is very weak," said Ihor Petrenko, political analyst with the Kyiv-based think-tank United Ukraine, referring to Putin's willingness to strike a deal with Wagner.

"After all, the Wagnerites had already committed a raft of crimes in Russia: in Rostov-on-Don they seized military bases, a military headquarters and government buildings, and shot down military helicopters and planes."

On Saturday, Putin said that anyone who had taken up arms had perpetrated a stab in the back, Petrenko said. "But he called out neither the Wagnerites nor Prigozhin by name. He did that to give himself a chance to reach an agreement with them."

"We also have to consider the possibility that Putin has started to look for a scapegoat," he said. "Having no victories on the [Ukrainian] front, he's trying to defeat the domestic enemy. And he will then use this effort to order a mass draft. Later he can say, we need to be united -- this will be a pretext for turning the screws even tighter [in Russia]!"

"This is a very serious blow. A blow to the tyrant Putin," Petrenko said. "In any case, it's a sign of weakness, a sign that his regime is not that solid and stable but rather brittle."

"Putin gave birth to Prigozhin, and he enabled him to become whom he became today," he continued. "That's why Putin has only himself to blame and has nothing good to expect."

"For [Putin] the situation is bad no matter what."

[Olha Chepil from Kyiv contributed to this report.]