The Ukrainian attacks escalated during the past hours, in conjunction with the armed rebellion carried out by the Russian “Wagner” forces.
Kiev also talked about more forceful moves in the coming days, despite the decrease in the intensity of the fighting. These developments were described by experts who spoke to “Sky News Arabia” as “natural steps after the hours of tension experienced by Moscow.” So what did Russia gain from the adventure of the “Wagner” commander, Yevgeny Prigozhin?
Safe exit for everyone
In a move that largely ended the development of events on Russian soil, the Kremlin announced that the President of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, had negotiated a “deal”, according to which:
- The founder of the Wagner Group moved to Belarus without facing criminal charges in Russia.
- Part of the “Wagner” fighters, who are not participating in the rebellion and taking up arms against Russia, sign contracts with the Ministry of Defense, in exchange for not accusing any of them of being involved in an armed rebellion..
After thwarting the Wagner rebellion, which lasted for 36 hours, the researcher on international affairs, Diaa Noah, says that the most difficult confrontation for organized armies is confronting “rebellious movements at home, because they feed the spirit of military divisions.”.
Noah adds to Sky News Arabia:
- “Russia has the second most powerful armies in the world after the United States, according to the (Global Fire Power) ranking for the year 2023, and despite that, the Wagner rebellion represented the strongest test for Russia in the last 10 years.”.
- “The Wagner rebellion proved Russia’s need for a professional combat presence in its army, especially since most of the strength of the Russian army is through compulsory recruitment of soldiers, which caused defeats and a significant retreat in the beginnings of the Ukraine war before the emergence of Wagner’s role.”.
- “The Russian army’s doctrine is based on firepower and a scorched-earth policy, which revealed a lack of a strategy to confront internal crises in cases of military rebellion or coup.”.
- “Neutralizing Wagner in the (safe exit) deal that was concluded between the Russian leadership and the Wagner commander under the auspices of the Belarusian president, is a setback for Russia’s strength in the face of the Ukrainian army, and in a sensitive stage of the counterattack that began 3 weeks ago.”.
- “The Russian leadership has become forced, according to expectations, to dismiss Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and the Chief of Staff, due to the military crisis they caused and (the generals’ struggle) with Prigozhin in recent months, which almost cost Moscow a devastating civil war.”.
- Undermining Wagner’s operations in parts of the world, because the basis of its existence was the lack of an official link between it and the Russian Ministry of Defense, and the first loss will be in West Africa (Central Africa, Niger, Congo and Mali)..
Generals clash
The past weeks did not subside the war of words and arguments between the commander of Wagner, who did not miss an opportunity to accuse the Minister of Defense and the Chief of Staff of “hiding the truth from the Russians, concealing the extent of material and human losses, and causing delay in the resolution of many confrontations in Ukraine.”.
In this context, Oleksandr Fomin, a researcher at the Center for Security Issues of the Russian Academy of Sciences, says that the hostility between what he described as the “strong trio” (Shuigu and Valery Gerasimov on the one hand, and Prigozhin on the other), was not born in the past weeks, but rather flared up since last December. “.
Fomin explains the aggravation of the dispute between the three, saying that “it has recently reached a stage that prompted Russian President Vladimir Putin to intervene personally.”
And he continues, “Putin called Prigozhin and Shoigu for a meeting to calm the tension, but things got worse and Wagner’s commander entered into an armed rebellion against the Russian military leadership.”.
Regarding the reasons for the hostility that led to Wagner declaring the rebellion, the expert at the Russian National Center for Military Studies, Hoffman Marchenko, refutes the stages and motives of this conflict in several points, namely:
- “Prigozhin’s entry into the battlefield and his victories in the Bakhmut axis aroused in him his lust for ambition and control, and an attempt to find or create a parallel army that would not obey the Russian army.”
- “Prigozhin’s relationship with the Russian president led to a state of anger within the military wings of the army, especially the Minister of Defense and the Chief of Staff, and the beginning of the real dispute was the failure to hand over heavy weapons to Wagner’s forces.”
- “The leaders of the Ministry of Defense do not trust Wagner and its movements, given the monitoring of violations that have already taken place and disobeying orders on the battlefield during the past months, without referring to the Ministry of Defense.”
- “The army leaders also refused to give any privileges to Wagner or its commander, which angered Prigozhin a lot.”
- “Defense Minister Shoigu and Chief of Staff of the Russian armies Gerasimov made headlines as two sides of the war in Ukraine in the event of Putin’s absence from the scene, which made Prigozhin jealous because he did not believe in their competence, which prompted him to invite the chief of staff to visit the fighting sites and show courage.”
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