Recently the while the entire world was surprised witnessing an unexpected attempt of coup d’etat by Wagner mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, Ukrainian leaders, its intelligence bosses and their Western masters began opening bottles of champagne thinking it was the beginning of the end of Vladimir Putin and few of them even thought – Russia was going to collapse for the second time.
As we know, according to vocabulary, mercenaries are those who are primarily concerned with making money at the expense of ethics. In this case, Yevgeny Prigozhin and the members of his Wagner Group do not have any ethics. Instead, their sole moto is making money in exchange for doing anything and everything. Moreover, if we look into the background of Prigozhin, we shall understand, he is an ungrateful individual, as the man behind his today’s fortune is Russian President Vladimir Putin. Should he had even minimal ethics and human qualities, he would never betray with Putin – the man who has pulled him from the street to today’s position. We all know, in human lives, gratefulness or gratitude is extremely important and a man lacking such quality can only be compared with beasts. In this case, Prigozhin is an ungrateful beast.
Now the question is – why did the boss of a mercenary entity had revolted against Russia and President Vladimir Putin? We already know by now, for a man like Prigozhin who totally lacks any ethics or human qualities, there was no ideological differences between him and the Russian armed forces. All we know until now, he was offered US$1 billion by Westerners for staging coup, assassinating President Vladimir Putin and push Russia into absolute lawlessness. His Western recruiters had also handed-over a long list of Russian military and intelligence officials, members of the media as well as scientists, academics and business tycoons with killing assignments, as part of Western conspiracy of causing optimum damage to the Russian Federation. So, Prigozhin’s rebellion was not against any Russian military official or President Vladimir Putin alone. It was a far-wider and deeper conspiracy against the Russians.
Yevgeny Prigozhin’s notoriety had attracted the world’s attention as some Western analysis considered this “armed rebellion” as a “heavy blow to Putin’s power, exposing the weakness of his leadership as the Ukraine-Russia war entered a stalemate”, which some Chinese experts say is “wishful thinking” by the West regarding Russian politics.
According to media reports, following a short-lived revolt, Wagner mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin will leave Russia and move to Belarus under a deal brokered by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, which ended an armed rebellion that Prigozhin had led against Russia’s military leadership, Reuters reported.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Lukashenko had offered to mediate, with Putin’s agreement, because he had known Prigozhin personally for around 20 years. Peskov said that the criminal case that had been opened against Prigozhin for armed mutiny would be dropped, and that the Wagner fighters who had taken part in his “march for justice” would not face any action, in recognition of their previous service to Russia, according to the media report.
Some Chinese experts believe that the withdrawal of the Wagner soldiers is a rational choice as Prigozhin’s top priority is to gain more attention, especially from Putin, to bring up his demands rather than launching a real mutiny against the Russian leadership.
On this issue, Global Times chief reporter Chen Qingqing wrote: “Despite the Western media saying that the revolt exposed the weakness of the Putin administration, the rebellion was quelled in such a short period of time after Putin vowed to take decisive actions on Saturday morning. This in fact shows that the Kremlin maintains a strong capability of deterrence, which will further increase its authority, some experts said.
“In response to the report of retreat of Wagner soldiers from Russia’s Southern Military District as its chief Prigozhin accepted a proposal from Belarusian president Lukashenko to ease the tension while Russian President Putin has guaranteed that Prigozhin can go to Belarus and will rescind criminal case on him, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said on Sunday night that this is Russia’s internal affair.
“As Russia’s friendly neighbor and comprehensive strategic partner of coordination for the new era, China supports Russia in maintaining national stability and achieving development and prosperity, a spokesperson from the ministry said”.
Wang Yiwei, an international relations professor at the Renmin University of China, told the Global Times “Prigozhin has not actually launched a coup against the Russian government but protesting in such a way to express his dissatisfaction toward top Russian defense officials and to demand better treatment for the Wagner group”.
According to Global Times, despite Wagner’s retreat, some Western media such CNN and The New Yorker came up with analysis saying that “Putin is at risk of losing his iron grip on power” and “Putin’s weakness unmasked”. CNN said “this is not the first time this spring we have seen Moscow look weak. The drone attack on the Kremlin in May must have caused the elite around Putin to question how on earth the capital’s defenses were so weak”.
US President Joe Biden spoke with the leaders of France, Germany and the UK amid concerns that Putin’s control over the country could be slipping, and EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell avoided direct comment on what he called an “internal” issue for Russia.
Some Western politicians hope to see Putin lose control of the country while Russia falls into chaos so Russian troops will retreat from Ukraine, and some hope to weaken or split Russia, which all led to such exaggeration of the Wagner revolt, he noted.
Although the revolt ended within about 24 hours, the retreat of Wagner solders left some questions unanswered including how to solve the long-standing conflict between the paramilitary group and the Russian military.
According to experts, further prolonging of the Ukraine conflict shall have a negative impact on the Russian political situation as well as stability of the Russian military. Under such circumstances, it would be priority for Kremlin to find a way to resolve the Ukraine conflict at the quickest possible time. Meanwhile, Washington and its European allies are also becoming tired of sending military aid and cash to Ukraine and such actions are causing economic constraint to their own countries. Moreover, further prolonging the Ukraine conflict may not bring political benefit to Joe Biden.
In this case of course, while Western nations will exert pressure on Vladimir Zelensky to end the conflict by reaching into a peace deal with Moscow, Russia leader Vladimir Putin needs to take a tougher stance on Yevgeny Prigozhin while he also needs to ensure similar attempts of coup d’etat don’t take place in the future.
