A sledgehammer for Putin

Is Vladimir Putin’s war as good as lost? It well may be. At least, the Ukrainian army is no longer his biggest problem. His own former chef, Yevgeny Prigozhin, graduated from meddling in U.S. elections to a full-fledged military coup.

In a stunning move, his shock units have marched some 110 miles out of Enakievo, captured Rostov. They seemed set to enter it when Prigozhin announced the withdrawal of his troops due to an agreement reached with Putin. It remains to be seen whether it’s a ruse.

Putin is said not to be in Moscow. Unlike Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who stayed in his capital city while it was under attack, Putin is rumored to have taken shelter at his refuge at Valdai. What if Prigozhin’s units secure the Borisoglebsk nuclear site on their march to Moscow? Is the Valdai bunker deep enough?

Prigozhin specializes in coups in Africa. So, it seems Africa came home to roost in the Kremlin. Prigozhin went into full riot mode on Friday evening after claiming that the Russian Ministry of Defense shelled his troops.

Rostov is the ops center of the war against Ukraine. Capturing it provides Prigozhin with all its ammo depots and food, but it also destroys the logistics of Russia’s army. Valerii Zaluzhnyi – the Ukrainian supreme commander who is already considered to be a military genius – is unlikely to miss the queue. In fact, one may surmise that Zaluzhnyi was stalling his offensive for precisely this reason. The thought is a fascinating one.

Putin and his cronies have been robbing Russia blind for 23 years, building themselves palaces, pushing the average Russian deeper and deeper into misery. Prigozhin is delivering a message to the Russian people that their misery is the fault of fat rats who are plundering Russians.

The Wagner mercenaries consist of professional soldiers, which in Russia means the poor and convicts — rapists, murderers, thieves, who were recruited by Prigozhin. These are the people who have cut a prisoner’s head for fun or killed a traitor with a sledgehammer. This is their grand style.

They have nothing to lose. If they sign a contract with the Ministry of Defense, as Putin ordered, they will be thrown into the front lines and killed. The practice of annihilating the rebellious troops by sending them to the front didn’t originate with the Russian army. If they rebel and win, they’ll have all of Russia to rob.

This is the first law of the private army. A private army doesn’t fight the strongest foe. It always fights the weakest foe and the one that is fat and happy. There are no kudos in fighting the Ukrainian army. There are kudos in robbing “the fat rats.”

Putin has made many fatal mistakes in Ukraine, but the one that will do him in is raising, feeding and abetting a private army. He was thinking that his mega-ambitious chef would remain loyal to him. But the commander of every private army serves his suzerain only as long as his suzerain can force him to.

The strangest part of it is that the Russian army is fighting at its best right now. It’s dug in. The Ukrainian army wasn’t given proper weapons for a modern offensive. It advanced cautiously (or waited for Prigozhin to strike). Technically, it’s Prigozhin, not “the fat rats,” who is stabbing the army in the back. So, what’s the catch?

The answer is simple. Prigozhin’s time is running out. His troops were used as a stopgap measure. He was throwing wave after wave of disposable criminals in frontal assaults at Bakhmut while the regular army was digging in. Now it is dug in, and it turns out that it is Prigozhin himself who is disposable, not just his convicts.

Moreover, the Russian Ministry of Defense took over Prigozhin’s idea of utilizing convicts. It’s putting them in the first line of defense, where they act as bait. They are destroyed by advancing Ukrainian troops, and then the positions are shelled from the second line. The Russian army is dug in. But every day of this battle deprives Prigozhin of potential recruits.

There are many possible outcomes to this revolt, but Putin is unlikely to win in the long term, for today it was demonstrated that nobody is willing to die for Putin. Putin is weak, delusional and a nuclear danger. His closest aids are waiting to pounce. Even if Prigozhin is really withdrawing his troops (which remains to be seen, for both parties to the agreement are not renowned to keep their word), the sad spectacle of armed criminals, aided and abetted by Putin, marching on him is enough to do him in in the long run.

Anyway, all this is a boon for Ukraine. Any revolt, rebellion or violent change usually ushers in a brief partial paralysis of state. That’s how Putin snatched up Crimea in 2014. Now it’s Ukraine’s turn.

Yulia Latynina, a journalist and a writer, worked for Echo of Moscow radio station and the Novaya Gazeta newspaper until they were shut down during the war in Ukraine. She is a recipient of the U.S. State Department’s Defender of Freedom award.