A weekend of mayhem has left observers of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine questioning what could happen next.
Ukrainian forces can look to take advantage of the Wagner Group’s short-lived armed rebellion, analysts said, with confusion among Russia’s military leadership expected to considerably weaken their war effort.
A weekend of mayhem has left observers of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine questioning what could happen next. The extraordinary 24-hour period posed what many regard as the greatest challenge to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s grip on power in his more-than two decades of rule.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, the notorious boss of the Wagner private militia group, launched an apparent insurrection over the weekend, sending an armored convoy toward the Russian capital.
The rebellion was abruptly called off late Saturday, however, in a deal brokered by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. Prigozhin agreed to de-escalate the situation and ordered his fighters advancing on Moscow to return to their bases.
John Barranco, the 2021-2022 senior U.S. Marine Corps fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, said the Wagner rebellion could not have come at a better time for Ukraine.
«Whatever Prigozhin’s real motivations are, or the outcome of his revolt and then apparent about-face, a few things remain clear: Massive amounts of confusion have been sown in Russia’s rear area, and whatever confidence rank and file Russian soldiers had left in their leadership is gone,» he said in a blog post.
A spokesperson for Russia’s foreign ministry was not immediately available to comment when contacted by CNBC.A war without Wagner
Barranco said that once an army loses confidence in its leadership, morale falls through the floor — and the will to fight often goes with it.
Describing Wagner as what had been Russia’s most effective unit in Ukraine, Barranco said the mercenary group will almost certainly be disbanded and it was not yet clear whether its fighters will be absorbed into the Russian army.
