It Ain’t Over Until It’s Over!

Respite for Putin, but the day of reckoning is coming

‘Prigozhin cancelling his coup when Moscow was in his sights wrongfooted the world – but whatever deal Putin has struck it is only a short-term fix. Putin’s endgame is already written, writes Stuart Crawford.’

Just when we all thought that the writing was on the wall for Putin and his criminal cronies, Prigozhin and his horde of dubious veterans and ex-convicts got cold feet.

Having progressed halfway up the M4 motorway to Moscow and taken out a slack handful of Russian attack helicopters on the way, they turned tail and retreated to whence they came, and have since departed Rostov-on-Don which they had occupied a scant 24 hours beforehand.

That the peacemaker was none other than Putin’s principle catamite, President Lukashenko of Belarus, is hardly surprising.

His grip on power in that beleaguered and God-forsaken country depends wholly on Putin’s patronage, and he will do anything to please his master.

Indeed, it is significant that it is to Belarus that Prigozhin has been exiled.

He is still within easy reach as far as Putin is concerned. I wouldn’t be staying in any tall buildings if I were him. As for his Wagner Group, it appears that its members are either relocating to their operations in Africa or volunteering to join the regular Russian army.

The dismembering of Wagner is a significant blow for the Russian war effort. It has done much of the heavy lifting in the fighting and is responsible for Russia’s only real tactical success to date, the taking of Bakhmut. With its withdrawal from combat the Russians are much weaker, on the ground at least.

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See Also:
Muscovites see Emperor Putin has no clothes

Putin is a dead man walking

Business as usual, Mr President?

Cracks in Putin’s power revealed by Wagner mutiny, US says

Putin disappears as allies ask why rebels got so close to Moscow