What the Wagner imbroglio means for Ukraine

When a truthful person tells a lie, people take it for truth. But when Yevgeny Prigozhin, leader of Russia’s Wagner Group―a disinformation ace and liar who was indicted for his internet troll farm’s role in the 2016 US elections―says the truth about the wrongness of the war from the Ukrainian soil and after that crusades with his men towards Moscow for “justice”, it shocked everybody―but not the Ukrainians.

Ever since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, things were not going as planned. Everybody had predicted that Ukraine would fall in a matter of days. That did not happen. Though Russia could occupy more than 25 per cent of Ukraine, it had to retreat from Kyiv, Kharkiv and Kherson, thanks to the spirited fightback by the Ukrainian armed forces. Analysts say there were drawbacks in planning, and the intel collected by Russians from their Ukrainian support bases was misleading. Borrowed from the post-World War II era, the ideas of denazification and demilitarisation were not understood. The number of forces deployed in the ‘special military operation’was not significant enough to hold and manage the territories. Above all, the Ukrainian people stood against occupation. Ukraine started lobbying with the west for arms and other support, and the narrative quickly changed into Russia vs west, where Ukraine was a mere proxy. This impression that Russia is fighting alone against the big alliance that is backing Ukraine also helped widen public support in Russia.

Air power, and the strength of missiles and armaments gave Russia the superiority it needed to carry on strikes and maintain the tension on the frontline and all over Ukraine, but issues of personnel and ground-based vulnerabilities revealed themselves soon. Ukrainians knew these long before Prigozhin played the good cop, emphasising the uselessness of the war, oligarchic-coveted interests and inefficiency of Russia’s Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and Army chief Valery Gerasimov. Notably, such insinuations are not new, they are occasionally aired on Telegram by Igor Girkin (aka Strelkov), an operative who was in Donbass, Ukraine, in 2014, and is accused of ordering the downing of MH17 of Malaysian Airlines, killing 298 people. Nobody complains when Girkin blames the military high command for slack progress in the Ukraine war.

In this case, embarrassment for the top-down command chain of Russian military and political leadership was more owing to the unhindered march of Prigozhin and Wagnerites towards Moscow. Many talked about “zero hour”, weakness of the Russian regime facing this mutiny, pointing at some schism among the siloviki (strongmen), the defence and the police―the bulwark of Russia’s internal and external security.

But, a deeper reason for the imbroglio was the unclear legal status of the Wagner Group in Russia. Wagner’s very creation and existence was a bad example of tampering with defence, where only the state holds the monopoly of violence and coercion. Other countries have private armed groups, but they do not get involved in economic and other projects like Wagner. The latter is illegal inside Russia but its activities abroad are eulogised.

Paradoxically, inside Russia, there are billboards advertising recruitment, and high payments are given to the mercenaries signing contracts. Hence we saw footage of people greeting Wagnerites in Rostov-on-Don. Abroad, apart from capturing Crimea and Donbass, their geography of operation was impressive―Syria, Sudan, Libya, Central African Republic, Mozambique, Mali, Burkina Faso, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Zimbabwe, Guinea and Madagascar, and their interests cover gold, rare metals, energy and strategic sectors, in cooperation with the ruling regimes of the respective countries. Wagner’s private status was to avoid international law―and liability to Russia as a state―while getting things done.

In reality, Prigozhin was unhappy with the financing he got for Ukraine. He also wanted to capture power. Amid the two lines within the defence lobby―one, including General Sergey Surovikin, former commander-in-chief of the air forces and Girkin wanting harsher actions on Ukraine, and another, including Putin loyalists like Shoigu and Gerasimov kowtowing the gradual moderate line―maverick Prigozhin chose to be with the hardliners first, but later wanted to be original and get maximum public attention by becoming the truth seeker.

While President Vladimir Putin earlier denied any relationship of the state with Wagner, he had to publicly acknowledge its lavish financing from the state budget. Recently, on the nationwide TV channel Russia-1, propaganda journalist Dmitri Kiselyov, in his programme Vesti Nedyeli, also detailed the payments the state made to Prigozhin.

These revelations, purges within the army and the final incorporation of Wagner’s mercenaries voluntarily into the regular army is good news, because one would shiver at the very thought of Prigozhin’s semi-legal forces taking charge of Russia’s huge nuclear arsenal. There is no zero hour. Russia’s decision-making vertical stays strong and is cleansed of troublemakers. The mutiny ended sooner than it started, with Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko mediating and giving refuge to Prigozhin, his old friend.

Leaving aside the issue of whether it is better or not for Belarus to have Prigozhin and his men on its territory, we may safely say, in view of the slow Ukrainian counteroffensive, the problems of recruitment and ground forces still remain for Russia. Only air power and the threat of nuclear strike are brought to the forefront to stop the counteroffensive and bring Ukraine to the negotiation table. An article in June 2023, titled ‘There is no choice. Russia will have to launch a nuclear strike on Europe’by political scientist and strategist Sergey Karaganov, who is now the head of the Council for Foreign and Defense Policy, sent shockwaves in the intellectual and diplomatic world. This might never materialise, but the threat in this argument has sufficient potential for deterrence.

Amid all this trouble emerges Ukraine’s NATO moment. Ukraine will push and plead, but the west will be reticent about membership. At the same time, the west will be forced to enter into security arrangements.

It seems the ball is in no one’s court, but in the air. The outcome is still to be seen.

―The writer, formerly with the UN, teaches at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, and also leads an NGO.