Warmonger Vladimir Putin has suffered a brutal blow to his authority after mercenaries aborted a coup aimed at ousting Russia’s top military leaders.
After 24 hours of mayhem, Wagner Group commander Yevgeny Prigozhin called off his fighters’ advance just 120 miles from Moscow.
The mutinous mercenaries had seized control of military facilities in the cities of Rostov-on-Don and Voronezh as they marched on the capital.
But on Saturday night, Prigozhin said he’d told his fighters to return to their field bases to “avoid bloodshed”, ending the violent standoff that could have plunged Russia into civil war.
Despite Putin accusing his former ally of treason and a “stab in the back”, the Wagner chief has been allowed to go into exile in Belarus under a secret deal brokered by Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko.
Charges against Prigozhin and his troops will be dropped, according to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
Warlord Prigozhin, nicknamed ‘Putin’s chef’ as he owned restaurants that serve the Kremlin, was seen smiling in selfies with roadside pedestrians, who greeted rebels with cheers retreating from Rostov-on-Don.
Russia is reportedly seeking to cover up the losses of 39 pilots and crew shot down by the Wagner Group in its aborted march to Moscow.
Putin is believed to have lost six helicopters and an Il-22 plane.
The fallout from the aborted coup has raised serious questions about his grip on power. The tyrant has not been seen in public since Saturday.
Russian state TV aired a pre-recorded interview yesterday in which he spoke of “stepping up efforts” against Kyiv.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Putin was “very afraid and probably hiding somewhere”.
US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said the drama revealed “real cracks” in Putin’s authority and warned this wasn’t the “last act”.
He said: “If you put this in context, 16 months ago Putin was on the doorstep of Kyiv in Ukraine, looking to take the city in a matter of days, erase the country from the map.
“Now he’s had to defend Russia’s capital against a mercenary of his own making – we see cracks emerging.” Tobias Ellwood, the Commons Defence Committee chair, writing in the Mirror, said Putin’s “once-mighty fortress appears on the brink of collapse”.
Tory ex-Foreign Secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind suggested the damage done to Putin’s authority could lead to him being ousted.
He said: “At some stage a group of senior Russians around Putin – it’s not going to be a popular uprising, or military coup – a mixture of generals, FSB intelligence agency people, some of the oligarchs will say ‘comrade Vladimir, we think perhaps it’s time for you to retire to your dachas’.”
Ex-MI6 officer Christopher Steele said Putin is facing his most significant challenge in two decades.
He said: “Putin has lost authority and legitimacy.
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“To see the speed with which the situation spiralled out of control must be very concerning for Putin and the people around him.”
Retired Lieutenant General Ben Hodges, a former general of US forces in Europe, said the uprising will affect the Russian military’s “willingness to fight”. He said: “If I was a young or mid grade officer in the Russian army right now, or even a soldier that has a little bit of sense of what’s going on, I would be very, very uneasy, as well as unenthusiastic about fighting.”
Wagner Group units have played a key role in the conflict in Ukraine, helping Russia to seize control of the city of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine.
Questions remain over whether troops will follow Prigozhin into exile or return to the fighting in Ukraine, where Kyiv has begun a counter-offensive to take back lost territory.
Lord Dannatt, former chief of UK General Staff, warned that Wagner forces remain a threat and could mount a renewed attack on Ukraine.He said: “If Prigozhin has gone to Belarus and kept an effective fighting force around him, he then presents a threat again to the Ukrainian flank towards Kyiv, where all this began. The aftershocks will reverberate for quite some time.”
And ex-Chief of the Defence Staff Lord Richards warned the UK risks “woefully underestimating” Russia amid fears Putin could lash out to boost his leadership.
Despite infighting between Wagner and Russian top brass, he said “it doesn’t appear as if Ukraine has been able to exploit it to achieve what it wants to do... a big penetration of the Russian lines”. He added: “Arguably, we’re in for a long haul here. And that actually is the worst of all worlds for the West.”
UK Treasury Minister John Glen called the situation “very unstable” but stressed the UK wouldn’t intervene in a Russian “internal matter”,
He said: “Nothing has changed with respect to the British Government’s position on supporting Ukraine.” Rishi Sunak,has urged “all parties to be responsible and to protect civilians”.
The Prime Minister spoke to US president Joe Biden, French president Emmanuel Macron and German chancellor Olaf Scholz on Saturday “to reiterate their continuing support for Ukrainian sovereignty”, No10 said.
