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Yevgeny Prigozin addressing the Russian MOD from occupied Rostov-On Don
There has never been a point in Russian history where Vladimir Putin has appeared weaker.
The state of the invasion of Ukraine, as well as the stability of the Russian Federation, has never stood on shakier ground.
We may see the collapse of Russia in our lifetimes.
First, some basics:
What is Wagner PMC?
Wagner Paramilitary Company is a privately owned and operated shadow militia group that was founded by Yevgeny Prigozin. Nicknamed "Putins Chef", Prigozin spent a chunk of his life being Vladimir Putins personal caterer. in 2014, Prigozin founded a privately owned, cash only militia group that specifically recruited the most brutal ideologues and warriors in Russia's military. Disillusioned with the Ministry of Defense, the Geneva Convention, and basic human morality, the Wagner Paramilitary Company has gone on to develop the reputation of being one of the most brutal and unforgiving groups of mercenaries the world has ever seen. Well known for committing crimes against humanity, the Wagner PMC has been recruited by the Russian MOD for assistance in participating in open conflict such as the Syrian Civil War, where they took credit for filming the torture of civilians. Beyond this type of brutality, they are also very well known for utilizing rape and sexual torture as mechanisms to terrify civilian populations to keep the populace from attempting to stop them.
Wagners reputation precedes itself. As well known as they are for their brutality towards civilians living in conflict zones, there is another reason why the Wagner PMC is feared across the world:
They will literally kill themselves. With sledgehammers. For insubordination.
In recent years, the sledgehammer, as well as visuals representing musical instruments, have been the calling card and symbolism for the Wagner PMC. Prigozin is so serious about this imagery, that during a European Parliament hearing declaring Wagner as a terrorist group, and Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism, Prigozin sent an "information package" to parliament representatives.
That information package was a bloody sledgehammer, emblazoned with the Wagner symbol sitting atop a pile of skulls, delivered in a violin case:
In summation, Wagner Paramilitary Company is a neo-nazi shadow militia group that is paid primarily in cash as a murder-for-hire organization. They commit false flag attacks and otherwise "under the radar" atrocities to advance the Kremlins agenda under the guise of plausible deniability since, technically, Wagner is *not* apart of the Ministry of Defense.
Now that that's out of the way:
What Happened?
On Friday June 23rd 2023, the head of Wagner Paramilitary Company made a decision that fundamentally changed not only the tide of the war in Ukraine, but created a crack in Russia's foundation that could very well begin the end of the Kremlin.
After months of public statements criticizing the Russian Ministry of Defense for everything from a lack of munitions causing a high number of Wagner and Russian MOD casualties, to directly calling out the heads of the Russian MOD for lying to Putin about the ratio of failures to success's on the battlefield, tensions and in-fighting between the Kremlin and Wagner PMC were at an all time high. The final straw (according to Prigozin and Wagner PMC) was a missile strike that hit and killed 2000 Wagner soldiers, that had apparently been launched from an MOD position. This is a very difficult claim to prove, as the only evidence to suggest that this happened is an extremely shaky video taken by mercenaries who survived the supposed strike.
Feeling disillusioned with the war effort, and livid at the lack of direction and accused strike from the Ministry of Defense, Yevgeny Progozin began planning. No one is quite sure when, or with who, that these plans started, but regardless of the planning stage, Progozin took roughly 2000 Wagner soldiers, as well as a slew of anti-aircraft artillery, hundreds of kilometers away from the front line in Bakhmut Ukraine, a very heavily contested city that has experienced some of the fiercest fighting in the war, and marched them backwards; directly into Russian territory. Specifically, the Russian city of Rostov, the 11th largest city in Russia with a population of over 1.1 million.
Not only did Wagner reach Rostov in less than 24 hours, they managed to take control of the city in that same time frame. One of the earliest indicators that Wagner was truly serious about this mutiny was reports and videos of the MOD headquarters in Rostov being invaded and subsequently conquered by Wagner forces. Wagner PMC was so effective at shielding their movements from the Kremlin and social media that this take-over of a military building in Russias 11th largest city was only truly known when the footage was released at the discretion of Wagner mercenaries.
For context: The Ukrainian city of Bakhmut has a total civilian population of roughly 700,000.
Rostov has a civilian population of roughly 1.1 million.
Several thousand Wagner soldiers, who previously had spent months in conjunction with MOD soldiers attempting to take and occupy a city of 700,000 people, turned around and occupied a city of over a million, with almost no resistance at all, in less than 24 hours.
In those 24 hours, the Wagner PMC proved three things to the world:
1: The Russian Military has absolutely no chance in Ukraine without Wagner assistance.
2: Conquering major cities in mainland Russia is as easy as just walking into them, because 90-95% of the Kremlins defense forces are currently dying in Ukraine.
3: Every single major military and paramilitary force is now wondering how easy it would be to walk into Moscow and take it over.
In less than 24 hours, a group of militia men that are 1/100th the size of the MOD military, managed to successfully occupy a city in Russia's mainland that is over 5 times the population of Bakhmut, a Ukranian city that the combined forces could not even overtake, much less occupy.
After a successful overtaking and occupation of Rostov, Prigozin posted this to Telegram.
In response, Putin made this statement. declaring Wagner a terrorist group.
It cannot be overstated the significance of a private military CEO addressing his war-time bosses, in real time, on a public forum, in newly occupied territory owned by his bosses, making demands of one of the most brutal authoritarians in the modern world: his boss.
To compound the sense of betrayal, Yevgeny Prigozin was so trusted by Vladimir Putin that Putin would exclusively eat his food when Prigozin was his personal chef.
Wagner made the Ministry of Defense and the Russian military look like children.
Toddlers.
They weren't done yet.
Marching to Moscow
Despite having already captured a major Russian city, Prigozin and Wagner did not have their realizations met, regardless of how powerful a message they sent to the Kremlin, before the world even had a grasp on what was going on. They pressed on to the capital city of Russia: Moscow.
To give you an idea of the distance they covered in such a short time:
Bakhmut, Ukraine to Rostov-On Don : 264 kilomteres =164 miles.
Rostov-On Don to Moscow: 1084km = 673 miles.
837 miles in total. Prigozins Wagner Group trekked about six hundred and thirty seven of those miles across the Oblasts, directly through Russian MOD militants, directly through Russian villages where they were not met with civilian resistance. Instead they were met with MOD resistance in the form of helicopters and fighter jets, which were promptly shot down by the anti-aircraft artillery that Wagner decided to truck along with them.
Screenshot from Google Maps indicating intense "traffic" on the M4 highway that Wagner advanced through.
Having gained significant ground by this point, Wagner PMC seemed to be on a mission. Prigozhin and his group showed no signs of slowing down, and after multiple successful strikes against MOD helicopters and fighter jets that were designated to stop them in their tracks, the Kremlin began displaying some very worrying signs that they may not have the munitions or the military might to stop an armed march into Red Square.
So they started digging trenches in major roadways on the way to Moscow.
No, seriously. They actually did this.
By this point, even casual observers were beginning to wonder if a major occupation of Moscow was going to be a reality. As unlikely as it seemed, the measures the Kremlin began taking in order to stop the Wagner advance seemed incredibly desperate, and frankly the complete opposite of measures that would be taken by a country who had full control over its fighting forces.
The Kremlin was scared. Possibly more frightened of internal mutiny than they have ever been.
Then something happened that nobody expected.
Prigozin and Wagner PMC just.....stopped.
200 kilometers short of marching directly into Moscow, they stopped.
"What the fuck? What? They did WHAT?" - direct quote from everyone watching this live.
It truly was one of the most confounding moments, if not *the* most confusing moment in the entirety of Russias invasion into Ukraine so far.
They just.......stopped their advance. After having occupied Russias 11th largest city, after killing Russian pilots and downing Russian planes and helicopters on the M4 highway spilling Russian blood on Russian land, after an enormous amount of blustering and chest thumping and direct name calling of Ministry of Defense leaders.....
They just stopped.
The End?
For this last segment, I'll be disregarding any of my own personal opinions and simply stating the course of events that took place after Wagner decided against marching into Red Square.
This is a direct quote from a timeline of events that you can find here:
Wagner Retreats
8:28 PM: Rumors begin to spread of a peace deal being struck between Prigozhin and Putin, with Belarus’ Lukashenko acting as the mediator. Prigozhin initially denies these claims.
8:52 PM: Prigozhin announces the retreat of Wagner PMCs from Moscow. Initial rumors indicate that as part of the agreement reached, Prigozhin will have all charges dropped against him and will live in exile in Belarus, Wagner PMCs who didn’t partake in the convoy with sign new contracts with the MOD, while those that did will not be charged.
9:16 PM: Russian MOD troops are spotted refilling holes made in the M4 highway south of Moscow.
9:23 PM: Wagner PMCs in Rostov begin to pack up their equipment in the city center.
9:26 PM: Wagner PMCs are seen hugging residents of Rostov as they depart, with residents chanting “Wagner is power.”
9:27 PM: Russian MOD releases photos from the raided office of Prigozhin at the Wagner headquarters in St. Petersburg, showing falsified passports with fake names, 5 kg of gold, and numerous bags of various currencies.
9:28 PM: First reports of splinter groups within Wagner calling Prigozhin a traitor.
9:58 PM: Russian MOD reports a total of 12 Russian pilots were killed by the Wagner convoy in one day.
10:53 PM: Wagner PMCs are spotted leaving Rostov’s city center.
11:08 PM: Prigozhin is spotted departing the headquarters of the Southern Military District with the remaining Wagner PMCs in Rostov.
After marching several hundred kilometers, taking over a major city (and then some, I didn't cover them all here for length reasons), killing Russian soldiers on Russian territory, actively speaking out against the leaders of the Ministry of Defense, all while leaving several territories open in Ukraine which would result in that ground being re-gained by Ukraine in a matter of days; all of these actions being considered treasonous by the Kremlin, Yevgeny Prigozin had all of his mutiny and treason charges dropped by Moscow, his paramilitary company was excused for any crimes by Moscow, and Prigozin along with several thousand Wagner soldiers are currently (supposedly), living in Belarus in exile.
All of this is apparently the result of a "deal" between Putin and Wagner that was struck by..........Lukashenko. The president of Belarus.
What does he have to do with this?
Nobody has any goddamn idea.
What happens now?
As succinctly as it can possibly be stated: nobody knows.
In the span of roughly 48 hours, the world experienced political whiplash. Conspiracy theories are abundant, Russian defenders have been seemingly posting flagrantly with no real narrative of what this was all about, Ukraine simply took advantage of the infighting to take back more ground in a single weekend than Russia managed to gain over the entire winter, and the Russian government, Ministry of Defense, and Vladimir Putin are left with an image of themselves that is the polar opposite of what they strive to project: authoritarian strong man rule.
In one fell swoop, several thousand rapists and murderers, led by a horrid monster of a human being, proved that Russia truly is a paper tiger. As much as they project strength, the capital city was as vulnerable to mutiny and armed takeover as they claimed Kyiv, Ukraine to be at the start of the invasion. Wagner PMC occupied more Russian ground in a single day than Wagner and the MOD could take from Ukraine over the span of several months.
Was making the MOD look bad the whole point? What does Prigozin do now? Why would anyone who understands Putin and his love for throwing traitors out of hotel windows, actively turn against his regime and seemingly get absolutely nothing out of it? None of Prigozin or Wagners demands were met, Shoigu and Gerisamov are still the leaders of the MOD, Wagner soldiers are now contractually obliged to be active members of the MOD by July 1st, and all the crimes committed by the PMC against Russia were immediately forgiven.
So what the fuck happened?
Why?
I think, at this point, we aren't truly going to know until people start dying.
It's the Kremlin way.
"Russia is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma" - Winston Churchill
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