* Mercenary criminals confront Putin
* Government challenged and fractured its power
Throughout the 23 years of Vladimir Putin’s regime in Russia, it has been denounced that those who dared to question or challenge him, in the best Stalinist style, had tragic endings: long prison sentences, expropriation of assets and in many cases the death by poisoning or with weapons of all kinds. The list of ex-allies, journalists, activists and politicians who are victims of the government of the ex-KGB agent is extensive and varied.
In recent days, a contender of his level has finally appeared, Yevgeny Prigozhin, from the violent neighborhoods of St. Petersburg, a millionaire with the help of Putin as a food and drink contractor for the Kremlin and as head of PMC Wagner, a shadowy company dedicated to recruiting criminals in prisons to fight as mercenaries in wars and conflicts that involve Russian interests. Rough, experienced, bloodthirsty, with no ethical or legal limits to their repertoire, his men have accumulated impressive results in the invasion of Ukraine and in other war scenarios.
Prigozhin had been questioning Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and the high command of the Russian army for inefficiency, bureaucratism and because they carried out the invasion of Ukraine under false pretenses in recent months. Also that the theft of ammunition and weapons and the development of all kinds of negotiations with the resources of the war “by the bureaucrats of Moscow” are constant and serious while thousands of young people die on the battlefields.
The confrontation reached its maximum tension last weekend due to the decision of the Ministry of Defense to end its relationship with Wagner and hire its members directly. Clearly, a measure of this magnitude would be reckless against an armed force, largely made up of criminals -50,000 convicts recruited just for the invasion- who have carried out massacres and all kinds of violent acts, in addition to Ukraine, in Syria, Libya, Sudan , Central African Republic and Mozambique.
The response was immediate: Wagner’s troops seized a military base in Rostov, southern Russia, last Saturday and began a convoy march from there to Moscow. They advanced 780 kilometers, and along the way they shot down six helicopters and a Russian military communications plane, actions in which 12 pilots would have died. They were only 200 kilometers from Moscow when the intermediation of the President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko managed to put down the rebellion without new clashes or casualties.
In his first statement after what happened, Prigozhin was emphatic in stating that his purpose was not to overthrow Putin but to prevent the destruction of PMC Wagner and bring to justice “those who, through their unprofessional actions, have made serious mistakes during the military operation in Ukraine”
The scale and severity of what happened is the biggest challenge Putin has ever faced and it will have enormous repercussions. He unites and strengthens the broad sectors of society that oppose his government and specifically the war that accumulates tens of thousands of victims. He exposed the deficiencies and weaknesses of the military apparatus and its distance from the Kremlin clearly reflected in the passivity to confront and stop the march of the mercenaries. The official forces did not join the protest, but neither did they confront it. The response to the attack also reflects weakness and insecurity in command. Lukashenko guaranteed refuge to Prigozhin and his army members who want to stay in Belarus while Moscow confirmed that they will not be prosecuted. And as if that were not enough, far from the drastic responses that he came to announce at the beginning of the crisis, Putin now offers the insurgents the opportunity to sign contracts with the Ministry of Defense or other agencies or to “return to their families and friends”. .
Clearly, given the shortage of experienced fighters facing Russia, the involvement of mercenaries is vital. Also that the crisis shows enormous questions about the solidity of the control that Putin exercises over the political, military and criminal apparatus that keeps him in power. And it makes clear before the eyes of the world that, far from the triumphalist profile proclaimed by the Kremlin, the military results of the Russian war in Ukraine are calamitous in terms of lives and sacrifices, and that the military apparatus that advances it collects and summarizes very well the inefficiency, corruption, indolence and cruelty of the man who governs them.