Wagner mutiny and the future of Ukraine war

THE rebellion

by Yevgeny Prigozhin, Russian President Putin’s trusted protégé and leader of the mercenary Wagner Group, has revealed cracks in Putin’s supremacy and raised concerns about a civil war in Russia, which has the largest nuclear arsenal in the world.

Until President Putin chose to initiate his ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine — he expected a short and swift campaign — his stature in geopolitics matched that of the leaders of the US and China. At home, he was credited with having brought back stability in a country mismanaged in the post-Soviet era.

The rebellion has also shown to the world the fissures within Russia, but it’s unlikely to lead to Putin’s ouster.

The rebellion by the Wagner mercenaries, who took over the township of Rostov-on-Don and the public cheers that backed their advance to Moscow clearly shook the Kremlin. It was the biggest sign of defiance to Putin ever since the war in Ukraine had begun.

It is said that the Orthodox Church in Russia had prodded Putin to make Russia an empire again and the capture of Ukraine, especially Kyiv, would achieve that. Dictators often become victims of their delusions, and Putin has been no different.

Notwithstanding the pretext of the US-led NATO’s support to Ukraine, 16 months are a long enough period to take stock of what has gone wrong for the mighty Russian forces.

So, the Wagner mutiny was a much-needed wake-up call. The group is made up of crooks and criminals who have done Putin’s bidding in Chechnya and Africa and are, no doubt, battle-hardened. But these mercenaries — who live off loot and plunder — should never have been deployed along with Russia’s regular forces. They aren’t trained to fight a classic military operation.

As a thumb rule, mercenaries, or, even special forces, cannot do what a regular army unit can and vice versa. For the mercenaries, conflicts are about making money and garnering the war booty that comes with it.

In this case, the Wagner Group was apparently paid or guaranteed a much higher sum than what the average Russian soldier gets. And in case of death in battle, group members’ kin would each receive payment to the tune of $6,000 or 5,00,000 roubles.

So, the question is: why were they willing to turn their guns on their paymasters in the Kremlin? It’s said that Prigozhin was fed up with the ‘incompetence’ of Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and the military campaign was being stalled even in East Ukraine, where Russia had made gains.

The Wagner members have been relocated from the battlefield to Belarus, perhaps for use in the near future. Among Russia’s military blunders, the deployment of mercenaries with regular soldiers is certainly high up on the list in this long-drawn-out war of attrition.

Moreover, the absence of a clear aim, besides the lack of a centralised military command, poor leadership, little interaction between units fighting alongside each other, and expecting conscripts to be on the frontlines have been some of Russia’s shortcomings in Ukraine.

A study of India’s campaign in the 1971 war would have done Moscow’s commanders in Ukraine a lot of good.

Instead, their military operations in Ukraine look like their failed campaign in Afghanistan. Most importantly, Moscow failed to take into account that an adversary determined to resist an invasion — like the Afghans or even the Russians against Hitler — cannot be beaten into submission or surrender.

But even now, Putin has the chance to make a face-saving exit from Ukraine by offering a truce that will allow Russia to hold on to the captured territories in Ukraine. With the Europeans fed up with the war, perhaps a division of Ukraine — along the Dnieper river — as was done in Germany after World War II, could be one solution. This would give Putin the buffer with West Europe and NATO.

The bigger question is whether the US would accept a ceasefire since it is the biggest beneficiary of this war. Its arms sales to the EU have multiplied manifold and allowed the US to regain its lost global stature — and as NATO’s leader — after its shabby exit from Afghanistan.

The US apart, China has gained in many ways. It now has Russia as an ally against the US and its partners to challenge America’s efforts to counter China’s ambitions, along with the Russian military and space knowhow and oil and gas supplies, to become the most powerful challenge to a free world by 2050.

And on the issue of an immediate ceasefire, India could offer to play the role of an honest broker to bring the conflict to an end, as New Delhi enjoys the goodwill and confidence of both Washington and Moscow. At a time when the UNSC has proved to be ineffective in stopping the war in Ukraine, India could play that role in ending the conflict.

Considering the growing Indo-US strategic ties — with defence, high technology and trade cooperation — and the fact that Moscow needs the traditional defence market that India provides, such an initiative by New Delhi would make it an honest mediator in a conflict which the world has got exhausted with, and doesn’t seem to find any answer to.

For India, this could be a turning point. It could give India the most important global role that it could possibly have in these times and affirm Modi’s repeated assertions that India deserves to play a bigger role in geopolitics.