Prigozhin likely to pay for coup with his freedom

THE Wagner Group, a private Russian mercenary outfit headed by the temperamental Yevgeny Prigozhin, has been in the news for an attempted coup d’état aimed at overthrowing Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Prigozhin is not a professional soldier but a businessman who used to supply rations to the Russian army. In the past two years, his company had won contracts worth over $2 billion. However, his contract was not renewed for the current year, which reportedly caused him dissatisfaction.

In 2014, Prigozhin set up the Wagner Group. The strength of this group, which is modelled on the French Foreign Legion, is estimated to be 50,000. Its soldiers were involved in fierce fighting in the Battle of Bakhmut, which the Russians won after more than 10 months of intense clashes.

Prigozhin has been making statements accusing Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and the Army Chief, General Valery Gerasimov, of not supplying artillery ammunition to his men fighting in Bakhmut and demanding their removal from office.

Matters came to a head on June 23 when Prigozhin marched towards Moscow with several thousand heavily armed men. They reached the town of Rostov-on-Don without much resistance. Prigozhin made some statements to the media in Rostov which were broadcast around the world. His men shot down two Russian military helicopters, killing 12 soldiers.

By this time, the Russian authorities had swung into action. Putin addressed the nation, describing Prigozhin’s actions as ‘treason’. That was followed by the news that the President of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, had reached a deal with Prigozhin on Putin’s behalf under which he, along with some of his men, had been exiled to Belarus.

Soon after, it was officially announced that the rebellion was over and that Prigozhin had left Russia for Belarus. The Russian Defence Minister and the Army Chief continued in their posts. Commentators noted that further loss of lives, and a possible Civil War, was thus avoided.

But it was announced by the Kremlin on June 29 that Prigozhin and other Wagner members had met Putin in Moscow. They discussed the options available for the future deployment of Wagner members, which implied that the Kremlin had not ruled out a role for them in the ongoing war in Ukraine, as also in some other countries. However, Prigozhin has not been seen since that meeting in Moscow.

The short-lived rebellion has raised several questions: were foreign intelligence agencies involved in Prigozhin’s attempted coup or had prior knowledge of it? Did the Russian intelligence know that a coup was in the works? Was Prigozhin in touch with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), MI6 (UK’s Secret Intelligence Service) and the Ukrainian intelligence before the coup?

Some pointers to the answers are available. First, it is known that the CIA officially briefed the ‘Gang of Eight’ on Prigozhin’s rebellion a few days before the attempted coup. The so-called ‘Gang of Eight’ consists of the senior leadership of the US Senate and the House. If the US knew about it, it is very likely that MI6 and Ukrainians also knew about it.

Conspiring with foreign governments to bring down one’s own government is a serious crime in all countries. For this reason, Prigozhin, despite assurances given to him, is unlikely to remain a free man for long. If he was involved in treason against Russia, he is likely to have committed other related crimes, for which no assurances of pardon have been given. He is, therefore, on the run. His exact location is not known; some say he is in Belarus, others say he is in St Petersburg.

The Russian authorities will investigate the extent of the damage caused by Prigozhin before meting out punishment to him. Public opinion on the matter is solidly behind Putin, who continues to enjoy approval ratings above 80 per cent. The war in Ukraine continues to proceed in Russia’s favour, prompting an announcement by the US that it will supply ‘cluster munitions’ to the Ukraine army. These munitions are prohibited for use by more than 100 countries due to the danger they pose to non-combatants. The US will supply them to Ukraine because it has run out of 155-mm artillery shells.

One of the reasons the war is not going well for Ukraine is the shortage of ammunition for artillery and air defence systems as also of soldiers, tens of thousands of whom have been killed since February 2022.

Russia, on the other hand, does not face such constraints. Moreover, Russian forces have built layered defences to guard the areas already occupied by them in the east and south. The much-vaunted Ukrainian ‘counter-offensive’ is also faltering because it does not have artillery and air cover, exposing Ukrainian soldiers to enemy firepower as soon as they reach the ‘kill zone’, located within the range of Russian artillery and air-launched weapons.

Despite such problems, the US and its allies have been escalating the war by announcing the supply of F-16 fighter aircraft, cluster munitions and ‘depleted-uranium’ shells to the Ukraine army. The US doesn’t want to accept defeat because that would sink Biden’s re-election prospects. The situation resembles the tale ‘Emperor With No Clothes’. Nobody in the administration wants to be the first to tell Biden that the war is going badly for the US and its allies.

By prolonging the war, NATO is playing into Russia’s hands because time is not on NATO’s side. Putin is playing the game of ‘attrition’, for which Russia has enough weaponry and manpower. The Russian economy is doing well and its factories are producing enough ammunition. Most importantly, the casualty rate is far lower on the Russian side.

Putin has indicated that he would not be the first to use nuclear weapons even though this is an existential war for Russia. But he has also indicated that Russia would not end the war until its objectives of ‘de-militarisation and de-Nazification’ of Ukraine are achieved.

Russia already occupies around 20 per cent of Ukrainian territory in the east and south of the country. It would like to add Odessa to it, cutting off Ukraine’s access to the Black Sea. Time and tide are on its side.