Is Putin’s grip on Russia weakening? What does Wagner Group's mutiny reveal?

In a watershed moment for Russia and Vladimir Putin, the Wagner PMV, led by Yevgeny Prigozhin, launched an armed insurrection against the Russian military, only to pull out within 24 hours. Wagner mercenaries headed back to their base on Sunday after Russia’s president Vladimir Putin agreed to allow their leader to avoid treason charges and accept exile in neighbouring Belarus. The agreement halted an extraordinary crisis — a private army led by Putin’s former close ally Yevgeny Prigozhin trying to storm Moscow — but analysts said Wagner’s revolt had exposed Putin’s rule as more fragile than previously thought. Wagner’s feud with Russian military Once a close ally of Russian president, Yevgeny Prigozhin called for a war against the Russian Ministry of Defence after alleging that Russian military forces attacked and killed a group of Wagner troops stationed in Ukraine. The mercenary army reportedly took control of military sites in the city of Rostov-on-Don and was en route to Moscow when the insurrection came to an abrupt end. Prigozhin, it was reported, had accepted a deal brokered with the help of the Belarusian government that would call for him to de-escalate his forces in exchange for safety guarantees. Security measures were still in place in Moscow on Sunday, though fewer police were visible, and passers-by said they were unconcerned, despite Prigozhin’s exact whereabouts remaining unclear. “Of course, I was shaken at the beginning,” Ludmila Shmeleva, 70, told AFP while walking at Moscow’s Red Square. “I was not expecting this.” “We are fighting, and there is also an internal enemy who is stabbing you in the back, as President Putin said,” she said. “But we are walking around, relaxing, we don’t feel any danger.” [caption id=“attachment_12787662” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Yevgeny Prigozhin, the owner of the Wagner Group military company, records his video addresses in Rostov-on-Don, Russia. AP[/caption] Prigozhin was last seen late Saturday in an SUV leaving Rostov-on-Don, where his fighters had seized a military headquarters, to the cheers of some local people. Some shook his hand through the car window. Trucks carrying armoured vehicles with fighters on them followed his car. There were reports that Wagner fighters had come as close as 400 kilometres (250 miles) from Moscow, while Prigozhin himself claimed that “in 24 hours we got 200 kilometres from Moscow”. The mutiny was the culmination of his long-standing feud with the Russian military’s top brass over the conduct of the Russian operation in Ukraine. Putin had on Saturday denounced the revolt as treason, vowing to punish the perpetrators. He accused them of pushing Russia to the brink of civil war. **Also Read: What the brief mutiny in Russia says about Putin’s hold on power** Later the same day however, he had accepted an agreement brokered by Belarus to avert Moscow’s most serious security crisis in decades. Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy and US president Joe Biden discussed the revolt on Sunday, ahead of a NATO summit in Lithuania next month. “The world must put pressure on Russia until international order is restored,” Zelenskyy said on Twitter, adding that he had again evoked the possibility of “long-range weapons” for Ukraine as it pursues a counter-offensive against Russian occupants. Vladimir Putin’s grip on power Within hours of Prigozhin’s announcement that his forces would return to base to avoid “spilling Russian blood”, the Kremlin said Putin’s former ally would leave for Belarus. Russia will drop the “armed rebellion” charges against Prigozhin and not prosecute Wagner troops, it added. **Also Read: Why did Wagner chief Prigozhin abort his rebellion in Russia? What happens next?** Ukraine revelled in the chaos, stepping up its own counter-offensive against Russian forces, while analysts also said the deal had exposed weakness in the Russian president’s grip on power. Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko said he had negotiated the truce with Prigozhin. Moscow thanked him, but observers noted that an intervention by Lukashenko, usually seen as Putin’s junior partner, was itself an embarrassment. Zelenskyy’s senior aide Mykhailo Podolyak tweeted that “Prigozhin humiliated Putin/the state and showed that there is no longer a monopoly on violence”. Russia insisted the rebellion had no impact on its faltering Ukraine campaign, and said Sunday that it had repelled new offensive attacks by Ukrainian forces. [caption id=“attachment_12787652” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Russian president Vladimir Putin addressed the nation on Saturday and vowed to defend the country and its people from an armed rebellion declared by mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin. AP[/caption] Ukrainian soldiers leaving the front line Sunday said the revolt had not noticeably affected fighting around Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine. “Most people, most military, understand very well that the circus from Russia is still here,” said Nazar, a 26-year-old bearded soldier, parked at a service station on a road leading out of the Bakhmut area. Kyiv, however, said the unrest offered a “window of opportunity” for its long-awaited counter-offensive. Russian president underestimated Prigozhin Wagner’s fighters, made up of volunteers and ex-security officers but also thousands of convicts, were often thrown into the front of Russia’s advance in Ukraine. The outfit also conducts several operations in the West Asia and Africa, largely seen as having Moscow’s blessing. “The crisis of institutions and trust was not obvious to many in Russia and the West yesterday. Today, it is clear,” independent political analyst Konstantin Kalachev told AFP. “Putin underestimated Prigozhin, just as he underestimated Zelenskyy before that. He could have stopped this with a phone call to Prigozhin but he did not.” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Sunday that Wagner’s short-lived uprising marked “a direct challenge to Putin’s authority” and “shows real cracks” in Russian state authority. French president Emmanuel Macron also said the march on Moscow “shows the divisions that exist within the Russian camp, and the fragility of both its military and its auxiliary forces”. Foreign Minister Qin Gang of China, which has maintained close ties with Putin since the Ukraine operation was launched, met Russia’s deputy foreign minister Andrey Rudenko in Beijing on Sunday. Afterwards the Chinese foreign ministry called the mercenary revolt an “internal affair” for Russia while expressing support for Putin’s government. With inputs from AFP Read all the Latest News, Trending News, Cricket News, Bollywood News, India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.