Yevgeny Prigozhin called off his march on Moscow on Saturday every bit as abruptly as he had begun his rebellion the previous day. But the Wagner group’s armed mutiny, however short-lived, has diminished Vladimir Putin in the eyes of both the elite and ordinary Russians. The mercenaries had taken over the Russian southern military command in Rostov-on-Don, a logistical hub for the Ukraine invasion, before racing towards the capital. Mr Putin was forced to warn of “a deadly threat to our state” and Moscow’s mayor urged residents to stay at home.
While Mr Prigozhin’s uprising looks like a desperate act to stop his private army being incorporated into regular forces, some wonder if broader intra-elite conflict lies in the background. The Wagner chief had become increasingly brazen in his attacks on the defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, and commander in chief, Valery Gerasimov. Initially there were suggestions that he might be acting with the approval of the Kremlin. But on Friday, Mr Prigozhin attacked not only the execution of the war but its very rationale, before claiming that Russian forces had killed scores of his men in a rocket attack and demanding revenge on the “evil” military leadership. A day later – after Mr Putin accused him of treason – he challenged his master outright for the first time.
