Wagner rebellion reveals ‘cracks’ in Putin government, says Blinken

Posted on June 25, 2023 by Admin

Secretary of state says mutiny may help Ukraine counteroffensive after Yevgeny Prigozhin calls off advance on Moscow

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A day after renegade Wagner mercenaries almost sparked a civil war in Russia, the top US diplomat has said the uprising showed “real cracks” in Vladimir Putin’s government and may offer Ukraine a crucial advantage as it conducts a counteroffensive that could influence the outcome of the war.

Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, said the upheaval triggered by the aborted advance on Moscow by Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Wagner mercenaries on Saturday was far from over. Neither Prigozhin nor Putin have been heard from since coming to a last-minute agreement on Saturday to avert clashes near Moscow between mercenaries and regular Russian troops.

What does the future hold for Prigozhin and Wagner after the mutiny?

Posted on June 25, 2023 by Admin

Despite ending his revolt, the mercenary chief will continue be a thorn in the Kremlin’s side unless he retires quietly to Belarus

The Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Saturday that the Wagner head had agreed to leave Russia for Belarus as part of a deal to end his armed revolt, while charges against him for organising the rebellion would be dropped. Peskov added that Vladimir Putin and the Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko had guaranteed Prigozhin’s personal safety.

‘Putin humiliated’: what the papers said about the Wagner rebellion in Russia

Posted on June 24, 2023 by Admin

Newspapers around the world raced to cover fast-moving events inside Russia, with many assessing what it could mean for Vladimir Putin

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The extraordinary uprising by the Wagner mercenary force so crucial to Vladimir Putin’s war machine in Ukraine has dominated headlines around the world and raised question marks about the Russian president’s grip on power.

The Sunday Times said “Putin humiliated by mutiny” alongside a main picture showing Wagner mercenaries training their rifles on the Russian military headquarters in Rostov-on-Don, the southern Russian city key to the invasion of Ukraine.

Yevgeny Prigozhin: the hotdog seller who rose to the top of Putin’s war machine

Posted on January 24, 2023 by Admin

Russian officials have said the Wagner group founder was on a plane that crashed outside Moscow. Some of those who knew him describe – what had been up to his abortive rebellion this summer – an extraordinary journey from prison to power

This article was first published on 24 January 2023

At the height of Russia’s first, covert invasion of eastern Ukraine, in summer 2014, a group of senior Russian officials gathered at the defence ministry’s headquarters, an imposing Stalin-era building on the banks of the Moskva River.

They were there to meet Yevgeny Prigozhin, a middle-aged man with a shaven head and a coarse tone whom many in the room knew only as the person responsible for army catering contracts.